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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23271010">Sonic X Men</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teharrisonfox/pseuds/Teharrisonfox'>Teharrisonfox</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types, X-Men - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Animals, Boarding School, Canada, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Fighting, Fireworks, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, Machines, Multi, Mutant Powers, Mutants, New York, Parody, Rewrite, Satire, School, Superheroes, Superpowers, Superspeed, Team Bonding, Transformation, X Mansion, minor rewrite</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 08:01:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>35,843</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23271010</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teharrisonfox/pseuds/Teharrisonfox</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Two mutants, Professor Miles Xavier and Scourge Lehnsherr find themselves torn between two conflicting groups that have starkly contrasting ideologies with regard to the development of the mutant kind.</p><p>Sonic character replacing the character in the 2000 X men movie (with a few extra characters)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Amy Rose/Sonic the Hedgehog, Knuckles the Echidna/Tikal the Echidna</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Prolouge</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Poland 1944</strong>
</p><p>The hard, cold rain pounded out of the sky, soaking clothes, changing the dirt to slippery mud, beating the life and hope out of everyone it touched.</p><p>A green hedgehog called Scourge Lehnsherr stood in the mud beside his parents, his coat wet clear through to his shirt, his small hand grasping the back of his father’s wool trousers just above the knee. His child’s eyes were wide at what was happening around him. His mother and father, both strong and sturdy people, held him close, tried to comfort him, shelter him, but the events of that hour were like the rain: impossible to avoid.</p><p>The mass of people scared him, making him want to run away. The guards made him want to cry. But he did neither. Instead he focused on the twisting spirals of barbed wire that covered the tops of the fences in front of and around them. Through the rain the points of the wire seemed to sparkle, calling out to him.</p><p>Suddenly the German guards shoved everyone forward, making them walk between two tall wire fences with more twisting barbed wire lining the top. Scourge didn’t want to stare at all the miserable faces staring at them from the other side of the fences. Those people were all terribly miserable and fatigued, and many were crying as the watched. Some clutched their arms, as if trying to cover the numbers that had been tattooed there.</p><p>Instead he traced the curved barbed wire and it’s shining points as he and his parents continued, slowly moving forward. It was as if that wire were his only friend in this hostile, miserable place.</p><p>At one point he slipped in the mud, but his father held him up. His mother clutched both him and his father. Together they moved almost as one, following the wet rows of people in front of them, trying not to pay attention to the guards.</p><p>Scourge told himself that he would be strong, like his parents, strong like the wire. Ahead of them people were screaming now, and Scourge didn’t want to get any closer, but his father and the guards moved them along, without saying a word. The people behind them crowded in tight, sometimes bumping him. A stoat woman behind Scourge was crying softly.</p><p>The barbed wire on the top of the fence seemed to spin along with them, twisting and sparkling in the hard rain. There had always been something about metal that he loved. The fence and the sharp points of the wire didn’t seem dangerous to him. He wished instead that he could climb up there and touch them.</p><p>Suddenly, ahead of them, the people moved out of the way, and from where he stood Scourge could see that the path turned into two paths, both of which were lined with tall weaved – wire fences. The guards were opening and closing the gates as people went through. A big dog guard in a German uniform shoved into them poking at Scourge’s mother with a rife, speaking much too fast for Scourge to understand. His father understood, though, and shook his head. “No.” His mother held onto Scourge even tighter, so tight that Scourge thought his bones would break.</p><p>The guard poked at them with the rife and began shouting. Scourge clung onto his father, not knowing what is happening, but something inside him told him that it wasn’t good.  Then his mother sceamed “No!” His father said again.</p><p>Suddenly two more German guards appeared out of nowhere, and yanked Scourge away from his parents. With a quick turn they shoved him along after the other children who were being pushed and carried down one of the paths between rows of fences. Many of the children were screaming and shouting and crying, others were strangely quiet. The guards turned their attention to Scourge’s parents and shoved them down another path.  Scourge started back to them, crying now. He wasn’t going to leave them. He wasn’t! They couldn’t make him!</p><p>But the two guards picked him up and carried him back along the fenced path, their hands were rough and hurt his skin through his wet coat. He kicked at them, screamed at them, but they were ignored him. They took hu through the weaved barbed wire gate and closed it. He could still see his parents though the gate his mother reaching put for him despite the restraint of a guard, screaming his name. His father just stood there, a guard’s rife pointed at his chest. Scourge tried to fight his way to them, but the guards wouldn’t let him down.</p><p>He glanced at the fence, and a thought flashed across his mind. He needed to be like metal, heavier. He needed to me much, much heavier, so that the guards can’t carry him anymore!</p><p>His feet touched the ground, and he planted them hard in the mud, focused on stopping. He wasn’t going anywhere without his parents. He as going to rip down the fence between them, so they could go with him. He focused all his anger and fear at the wire gate, and it started to shake. The guards pulled at him, but now they couldn’t move him, he was like the heaviest of metals, too heavy for the guards to budge. They yanked on his arms, hurting him even more, but he didn’t care. He wouldn’t go with them, not without his parents. He too a step back towards his parents.</p><p>He took a step back towards his parents, dragging the guards in the mud with him. The metal gate twisted and bent in front of him. Some of the strands of barbed wire began breaking, like weak string. Scourge knew that gate couldn’t stop him. One guard tried to pick him up and failed, swearing so fast that Scourge didn’t understand. All Scourge wanted was to tear down the fence and let his parents come with him. If the Germans wanted him, then his parents would have to come too.</p><p>Another guard came up, swearing loudly at the other two guards.</p><p>Scourge just focused on the fence, ripping it apart, making it go away. The coiled strands of sparking barbed wire along the top started to uncurl, whipping about in the air like angry serpents. The entire compound suddenly got very quiet, only the sound of the rain can be heard, pounding in the mud accented by the snaps of the breaking wire.</p><p>More and more strands broke, and the entire weaved – wire fated bowed towards Scourge. It was as if something massive pushed from the other side. Suddenly the rain stopped hitting Scourge as the third guard loomed over him. The other two were still pulling on Scourge’s arms, futilely, hurting hum making him madder and madder. And the angrier that Scourge got, the more the gate and the fences shook and broke apart. The new guard swore again, then raised his rife. Scourge could hear his mother’s scream cut through the silence and the rain. His father took a step toward him, wide eyed, only to be stopped. Then the butt of the guard’s rife came down hard. For an instant – just and instant – the wonderful feeling of metal closed in around him as he slumped into the mud. The last thing that Scourge saw was the gate falling, his parents on the other side, trying to get to him, held back by the guards. It was an image that he took down into blackness. It was the last time he saw his father, and his mother would die 45 minutes later.</p>
<hr/>
<p></p><div class="xcontrast">
<p></p><div>
<p></p><div><p>
        <strong>South California – 1986</strong>
      </p><p>The rough, water coloured mural of the royal blue sky, white clouds and distant horizons hung on hooks from the ceiling of the gym, just behind the basketball backboard, vibrating to the loud music. The bottom third of the large painting was a crude drawing of the skylines of cities, from Seattle to New York, all were silhouettes of buildings in grey paint and black outline. The most recognizable shape was the statue of liberty. Someone had even cut a hole where her torch would have been and put a light bulb there.</p><p>In front of the painting, high school kids danced, ate at tables and shouted over the music at the annual prom. The table clothes were blue, the napkins were blue and most of the girls had a ridiculous amount of blue eye shadow. Over half of the boy's tuxes were royal blue, though under the blue lights that flooded the air and li the background of the gym, they looked dark and faded.</p><p>A red echidna, Knuckles Summers stood facing his date, a wolf called Selena Ki, just to the right of the dance floor. He was thin and lanky, with thick brown hair. His smile and friendly personality made him popular among most of the kids and getting Selena as his date to the prom was like winning the lottery. She was one of the school's cheerleaders, the 4th smartest kid in the school and a beast when placed in in the soccer field, she managed to win the school the district school soccer championships, and sent the unfortunate opposing teams goalie to hospital. About half the school had eyes on her and she could have gone with anyone that she wanted, and Knuckles felt lucky that she asked him out.</p><p>He and Selena had been going out for at least a month, Knuckles liked her, but he was having troubles with her jealousy. Two of his friends had warned him about that problem, and he hadn't listened. Now he wished he had, if he even looked at another girl, she goes ballistic.</p><p>Right now she was really, really mad. "I don't ever want to talk to you again!" Selena shouted at Knuckles over the music.</p><p>"But…" Knuckles tried to say, but too late, she had already turned and ran away into the crowd her red and blue dress skirt brushing dancers out of the way. He went after her, ignoring a few friends who stood to the side, shaking their heads. Knuckles couldn't believe this was happening, not during the prom. So what if he had talked to Alexia yesterday after class? He was here with Selena, wasn't he? He didn't like Alexia that much, in fact he barely knew her. She had just come up to him, said "Hi" but worst of all she gave him a hug right in front of Selena.</p><p>Was it his fault that Alexia was a hugging kind of person? It seemed Selena thought it was, she wansn't even giving him the opportunity to explain or talk to him at all. She didn't even notice that Alexia was clearly dancing with another girl.</p><p>Selena stormed out of the hall and stopped with Knuckles right behind her, at least out here the music level was almost bearable, maybe out here she would let him explain that nothing was going to come between them. He had almost reached her when she spun off and slipped into the girls' room. He stared after her and set his jaw grimly. That wasn't going to stop him, not this time. He started for the door.</p><p>"Knuckles?" a voice said, bringing him up before his hand can touch the door.</p><p>He turned around to see Mr Roberts, his history teacher looking at him. Roberts pointed at the men's room a few feet away "Don't you think you would be more comfortable in there?"</p><p>"Yes, but I have to talk to her"</p><p>Robert's nodded, "I understand that, but not in there. Trust me, eventually they all come out"</p><p>Despite the logic in Robert's statement, Knuckles was so mad he had no idea what to do. He was frustrated as well, why was she doing this to him? What had he done to deserve having this night ruined all because of her irrational fit of jealousy?</p><p>Suddenly, a jabbing pain shot through the back of his head and into his eyes.</p><p>"AHHHHHH" he said, bending over, covering his eyes as they started to water.</p><p>"You alright Summers?" Roberts asked.</p><p>Knuckles managed to nod, then quickly headed for the men's room. The pain was intense, so intense that his eyes felt as if they were trying to explode out of his head. Inside the men's room about half a dozen others were smoking and laughing, but they all froze when they saw Knuckles. Normally when something like this happened in front of Knuckles, he would immediately tell the teacher. Just last week, he got almost a hundred students suspended when he caught them with drugs. But they can tell that Knuckles didn't even care if there was a dead body in the toilet and they were all holding daggers, all Knuckles cared about was the pain in his eyes, and the sink to wash the pain away.</p><p>Stan, the only person that Knuckles trusted that was in the group moved to Knuckles, "Is something wrong Knuckles? Is it Selena? If so it's alright, you can cry…"</p><p>"It's not her it's my eyes!" Knuckles cried</p><p>"What's wring with your eyes? I got some eye drops might help." Stan said</p><p>"Thanks…" Knuckles said, he stood and carefully opened his eyes.</p><p>"Holy!" Stan cried, stumbling back, the look in his face was that of pure horror.</p><p>Knuckles wiped a tear away as the pain got worse and worse. "What's wrong?" He can still see Stan, but everything was strange, as if he was peering through a red haze.</p><p>"Your eyes man!" Stan said still backing away "They are red! Really red! Pupils and all"</p><p>Suddenly Knuckles could feel the pain come together at a point above the bridge of his nose. And then it vanished, as if it had never been there at all. Instead there was energy flowing in his head. Energy he could feel like water running though his fingers. Energy that wanted out.</p><p>For an instant it felt as if the entire inside of his head was flowing out of his eyes. The energy burst out through them, smashing into the wall in front of him in a bright red beam of light.</p><p>The wall exploded.</p><p>And then a massive hole appeared, Knuckles could see inside the girls rest room, Selena and four other girls screamed and jumped away from the mirror.</p><p>The wall on the other side of the girls' rest room exploded outwards. At that moment Knuckles realised that he was the one doing the damage, his eyes were. He closed them, jamming his hands over them, and he dropped to the ground. Once again, the energy seemed to flow around and around painlessly inside his head, calm now, but waiting to be released again when he opened his eyes. Well, he wasn't going to open them.</p><p>Around him the screams and the shouts and yelling started. Shortly after there were sirens. He never had the chance, and never will get the chance to tell Selena that he was sorry.</p>
<hr/>
<p></p><div class="xcontrast">
<p></p><div>
<p></p><div><p>
              <strong>Kenya 1978</strong>
            </p><p>The deep blue of the sky made the sun look almost white. The heat came off the ground in waves, so even the scant shade under the thin trees seemed useless as a shelter.</p><p>The tribal village filled an open area along the edge of the sparse forest; the dirt around the tents was baked dry and hard. A dozen children of different ages played a game of tag, toughing each other with sticks, then running to avoid the one who was 'it'.</p><p>Bunnie, a young girl no younger than 12 with a white streak running through her dark hair, played with them. Bunnie was proud of herself because so far she had been able to keep from getting tagged. Swaet was streaming off her head and arms, but she didn't care, she was having the time of her life. And Bunnie loved the warm air, the slight breeze that dried her sweat, the bright sun. She just loved being outside and had been for as long as she can remember. To her the sun, the rain, the winds had always been things of pleasure and joy. This game with the other children just provided her with another chance to play in the sun.</p><p>The game continued until suddenly she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The tap of the stick on her arm was like an insect sting, and the laughter of the others told her that she was it.</p><p>Bunnie could feel fear grabbing at her stomach, the last time she was it, she failed to tag anyone else and ended up laughed at for days. She was used to being laughed at, she was different from the others, and they all knew it somehow. Though except for her white streaks she had no idea how and why she was different, she just knew it.</p><p>Bunnie saw a young girl about half her age lingering near a group of giant trees with its roots sticking out of the ground, Bunnie knew that this girl was almost faster than her, but she was bigger, she ran towards her. She only realised that it was a trap when it was too late. She tripped on the roots, she looked up to see that she was surrounded by 3 nasty kids much older than her, all pointing their sticks at her and her snapped stick. Now there was no way she can win, no way at all.</p><p>Bunnie was getting angrier and angrier as the others kept poking her, then a menacing looking girl hit her, then before she knew it she was getting whipped by the older kids's sticks, she begged for them to stop, for it to end, but that just encouraged them to hit her harder and harder, so hard that it drew blood.</p><p>Why were they doing this to her?</p><p>All Bunnie wanted them to do was stop.</p><p>Why can't they just leave her alone? She could feel her face getting hot from the anger</p><p>She wanted to hit them all back, show them how it felt. How it hurt. But they kept on, and it seemed to go on forever. As Bunnie got angrier and angrier and then everything changed, the hitting slowed then stopped as the kids looked up in awe at what was happening around them. The sky was falling in big white flakes.</p><p>White, cold flakes in the heat of the afternoon, out of the blue, cloudless sky. They fell slowly at first, then faster, harder.</p><p>But none of the snow was falling on her, but Bunnie was so angry that she didn't even notice or care, she wanted the sky to keep falling on them all, to hurt them all. The white flakes falling from the cloudless heavens turned heavier, then became small chunks of ice. The kids picked up the ice, looked at it. They laughed, staring upwards as it pounded down. It was still fun for them.</p><p>Bunnie stared at the other kids, the force of her anger more overwhelming that any she had ever felt. It had built up in her for years like water behind a dam. And now the dam had burst, and she was letting all the anger flow. She had wanted, more than anything for the sky to fall on them. It was doing just that, but she wanted more. She wanted them to hurt as she hurt.</p><p>The ice chunks coming from the cloudless heavens got larger and larger, soon the other kids began shouting out in pain. They scattered, trying to run for the tents. But now the chunks of ice were so large that they began to knock the kids down, smashing the tents, breaking off limbs from the trees. She cried even harder as the kids shouted and screamed for it to stop.</p><p>Now they knew how she felt, maybe next time they wouldn't torment her again.</p><p>Bunnie looked around and it dawned on her than no flakes or ice from the sky had hit her, and the pain in her body was replaced with a deep feeling of knowing the winds and rains of understanding the clouds and the sky, she can feel the water in the Earth and the energy of the sun. All felt comforting, deep inside, she understood them, knew them all like if they are a big family.</p><p>It wasn't until she arrived home that he hair had turned as white as the snow.</p>
<hr/>
<p></p><div class="xcontrast">
<p></p><div>
<p></p><div><p>
                    <strong>Mississippi – 1995</strong>
                  </p><p>Rouge the bat traced the line on the map while pointing with her other hand to the picture of the stature of liberty on her bedroom wall. She had spent hours staring at that statue and at that map, dreaming of travelling there, seeing the sights. Now she was sharing her dream with David. David was from her school, and at 17, the same age. They had started to date.</p><p>"I want to spend time in New York City" Rouge said, smiling at David. He was sitting on the edge of her bed. Her parents were downstairs watching television and the door was open, but it still felt odd to have him in her room. Exciting too. Only a few of her girlfriends had ever seen the inside of her bedroom.</p><p>"You gonna live there?" David asked</p><p>"No." She said, tracing the map farther north. "Seattle seems nice, then Niagara Falls. Then into Canada. Toronto, west to Calgary, then onto Anchorage."</p><p>"Woah" David said, clearly impressed. He stood and moved over beside her, staring at the map "Won't it be kinda cold?"</p><p>"Of cource it will!" She said laughing "Otherwise it won't be an adventure"</p><p>She could feel his closeness, his shoulder rubbing against her shoulder.</p><p>"When are you gonna do this?"</p><p>Rouge shrugged "I have no idea. After school, but before college."</p><p>He reached over and rested his hand on her shoulder. She could feel it, almost like a hot iron touching her, yet it didn't burn. It excited her, made her stomach twist like it had never twisted before. She had never been this close to a boy before, not like this, not in her bedroom with her parent's downstairs.</p><p>"So" she said, turning to face him a little "What do you want to do now?"</p><p>He looked right into her eyes. Then he smiles, sending shivers down her back.</p><p>"I don't know" He said "What do you want to do?"</p><p>He moved closer to her, and she could smell him. She had trouble breathing, yet there was no way in the world she wanted him to move away.</p><p>"I don't know" She managed</p><p>He turned her slightly, so they were facing each other, then slowly he moved forward until he was kissing her. It was as if a surge of electricity shot through every nerve cell in her body.</p><p>A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind.</p><p>
                    <em>He tastes good; My parents are downstairs; What would my parents think?; His lips feel wonderful; I can't breathe; I want to kiss him harder;</em>
                  </p><p>Then suddenly it all changed. As she put her arms around him, kissing him back, suddenly his mind opened up to her.</p><p>She knew what he was thinking, knew what he liked, what her hated, what he liked to do with guys, what he wanted them to do.</p><p>David's eyes snapped open.</p><p>His hands locked around her in a terrifying grisp.</p><p>She tried to pull away, but it felt as if he were pouring his every thought, his every wish, his evey dream into her head.</p><p>Energy crackled around them, until finally she managed to pull away. He dropped to the floor, his eyes open wide. The next thing she knew she was screaming, the images of David's life were still trmbling in her head, filling her head, filling her mind, mixing with her mind, mixing with her own until she almost couldn't tell which were hers and which were his.</p><p>He lay on the floor, twitching. It didn't look like he was breathing. Had she killed him? She hadn't done anything!</p><p>Her parents slammed into the room behind her as she realized she was still screaming, backed against the wall, staring at his body. She tried to push his memories away without success. Her father immediately dropped to the floor and performed CPR.</p><p>Her mother came to her, but Rouge didn't want her mother to touch her</p><p>"I didn't mean to" she said softly, inside her head, his memories fought with hers. His images of her fought with how she saw herself, and how he saw his friends and what he really thought of her.</p><p>"Honey what happened?" Her mother asked desperately</p><p>"Call a damned ambulance!" Her father shouted.</p><p>Rouge's mother vanished to call the ambulance, while Rouge's father continued CPR.</p><p>"I am getting tired, you take over!" Rouge's father said moment's later.</p><p>Rouge without knowing what she was doing complied, but the moment her skin made contact with David's chest he gasped as if woken from a bad dream, and Rouge felt something like a static stock as all of David's memories and thoughts vanished from her mind as quickly as they arrived.</p><p>Only she seemed to notice her skin glowing in a strange way.</p><p>Many miles away, a two tailed fox on a wheelchair noticed a red light flicker on his super computer, a new mutant has found her powers, and she would need his help, she would need the X men's help. Professor Miles Tails Prower Xavier removed the helmet that he was wearing and smiled.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Senate</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="xcontrast">
  <p></p>
  <div>
    <p></p>
    <div>
      <p>The cold of the winter day was long forgotten inside the Senate Hearing Room, as the packed bodies in the gallery and the heat from the television lights forced the temperature in the room up far above normal. Several of the senators, despite the intense media scrutiny of these hearings, had taken off their jackets. Many viewers in the balcony were fanning themselves with notebooks or loose paper. A two tailed fox known as Professor Miles Tails Xavier sat in his wheelchair near the center of the room, watching patiently.</p>
      <p>He could tell that most of the crowd was a very hostile one. He didn't need to read their minds to sense that. Their hostility clearly emerged with every action of the hearings' chairman, the flamboyant peacock senator Robert Kelly. Kelly was a white-faced, white-haired peacock with feathers that had all the colours in the world, and he was clearly using the hearings on mutant registration to propel his own career closer to the White House. And it seemed as though he had other demons that were driving him, though it wasn't quite clear to Professor Xavier what those demons were. At least not yet. In front of the hot room, at the witness table, sat a green echidna known as Dr. Tikal Grey. Even alone at the long wooden table, she had a commanding presence.</p>
      <p>A strong, good-looking echidna in her early thirties, she had been called upon to explain to the Senate Hearing the basic science behind the emergence of mutants. Professor Xavier had helped her extensively with the drafting of her presentation. They had gone over it time and again so that it would be clear not only to the senators, but to the audience on the other side of the television cameras. And considering the hot-button interest the public had taken in the mutant registration law, there was no doubt her presentation would make the news. To many, mutants had proved ripe for persecution based on the long-standing tradition of fearing anything unknown. So the best defence, Tikal and the professor had determined, was to help the regular people from middle America understand mutants and what they really were. The bigots like Senator Kelly would fold like wet tissue if public opinion shifted against them. However only 3 senators (New York, California and Washington State) were half-heartedly on their side, and at the moment the general public opinion was against mutants, the public was scared to death, and Senator Kelly is taking advantage of this, and is a master of playing that to the hilt.</p>
      <p>"Light please?" Tikal said</p>
      <p>A few people murmured something about that helping the heat, at least. As the lights dimmed around him, the professor didn't need to shift in his wheelchair to watch the show. Instead he focused his gaze straight ahead and opened up his mind to let the feelings of those around him flow in, not enough to read their thoughts, just enough to gauge how reaction to the presentation was going. He could feel boredom, uncertainty, empathy but the loudest was hostility. Tikal had a very deep hole to climb out of it seemed, they all did, if they were ever going to be accepted by society and defeat this ridiculous registration law.</p>
      <p>"DNA" Tikal said, spacing each letter as she started her presentation. "It is the basic building block of evolution. Changes in our DNA are the reason we have evolved from single celled organisms to Homo Sapiens"</p>
      <p>Diagrams and figures demonstrated the various stages of evolution, from the classic diagonal line showing the evolution of man to a complex diagram that can be found in college textbooks. One image took over the screen, focusing attention on the lowest order of humanoid, the Homo Habilis, a primitive apelike humanoid covered in thick fur.</p>
      <p>Around him, Professor Miles Xavier could feel the crowds interest increase, ever so slightly. And some revulsion emerged as men and women were confronted with the images of what they were decented from.</p>
      <p>"Within our DNA" Tikal said, explaining what was happening on the screen "are the genes that decide our physical characteristics. When these active genes mutate, we see changes in the body"</p>
      <p>The image on the screen began to mutate to make it look more and more Mobian like. The professor could tell many of the Mobians around him were becoming fascinated. Perfect. It was just what he and Tikal had hoped would be their reaction at this point.</p>
      <p>"These evolutionary changes are subtle, and normally take thousands of years." The image of the Mobian on the screen froze, and his body went transparent. Twenty percent of it was marked in white, representing moving, active genes. The remainder of the image of the man was marked in red, showing static, dormant genes.</p>
      <p>Now the people around the professor were really caught up. The room fell silent, except for a few whispers coming from a couple of the senators who clearly were not paying any attention and didn't want to. One of them was Senator Kelly.</p>
      <p>"Within each of us," Tikal said, "lie not only the millions of genes which dictate our physical makeup, but millions upon millions more whose purpose has been completely unknown to us." She paused for a breath, then went on. "These unused genes have traditionally been referred to as 'junk DNA.' In fact, over eighty percent of our genetic structure is made up of this so-called junk DNA."</p>
      <p>The words 'Present day' appeared on the screen, as a number of the red dormant genes began to move, slowly at first, then faster and faster.</p>
      <p>"In recent years" Tikal said "And for reasons that are still a mystery, we have seen this latent DNA in our bodies mutating. These mutations manifest at around puberty, and are typically trigged at periods of heightened emotional stress"</p>
      <p>With a glow of pride the professor knew that at the moment, with the exception of a few closed minded senators, Tikal had her audience.</p>
      <p>"The new DNA strands caused by the mutations are producing some admittedly startling results. In other words, this previously unused DNA is not 'Junk' DNA at all, but rather a vast storehouse which contains the almost limitless potential for human advancement."</p>
      <p>Suddenly the graphic on the screen showed the Mobian preform amazing feats. First, he grew in size, then he moved an object with his mind, then he turned into an 80-year-old then a 12-year-old.</p>
      <p>"Ladies and gentlemen, we are now at the dawn of a new age of human evolution, not a new race of creatures to be feared, but rather the opportunity to find advancement within us all"</p>
      <p>The lights slowly brightened, scanning the room once again, the professor could tell that Tikal and the presentation had accomplished what they had hoped. With understanding, the perception of mutants seemed to have begun to shift ever so slightly. The professor began to pick up feelings of uncertainty, of people rethinking their positions, and the leval of hostility was clearly lower, but now came the hardest part. Tikal had to hold this hard won argument against Senator Kelly.</p>
      <p>Kelly turned from the man he was debating with and smiled at Tikal like how a parent turns at their child who did something cute.</p>
      <p>"Thank you for the wonderful cartoon, Ms. Grey" he said in a vaguely patronizing tone "It was quite – how should I say it? – Educational."</p>
      <p>Some of the crowd snickered</p>
      <p>"However" Kelly went on, fidiling with his feathers, "It had failed the larger issue which, I may add, is the focus and the entire point of this hearing. Are. Mutants, Dangerous?"</p>
      <p>There was a low rumbling among the crowd, and the professor could feel new and increasing uncertainty flowing among the people</p>
      <p>"Well Senator Kelly" Tikal said in a forced calm voice "Don't you think that is an unfair question? The wrong person behind a car can be dangerous, the wrong person with a gun can be dangerous"</p>
      <p>"Both of whom requires a licence" Kelly said as if he found a loophole in Tikal's statement</p>
      <p>The professor listened carefully to the murmurs of the crowd as Kelly's aid handed Kelly a large black file as if it was a bomb.</p>
      <p>"But we don't give license people to live Senator" Tikal said</p>
      <p>Kelly acted as if he had gone deaf and was flipping through the file as if looking in a book to prove a point.</p>
      <p>"It is in fact Senator" Tikal said "That mutants who had revealed themselves publicly have been met with fear, hostility and even violence."</p>
      <p>The professor can feel that things were beginning to go against Tikal. This time, though, as he scanned the crowd with his mind, he felt a new presence, a powerful and familiar one. He turned around in his wheelchair and studied the back of the room which rose above him.</p>
      <p>There, by the door, in the shadows where he can't be seen stood an uninvited dark hedgehog shaped figure wearing a plain, expensive suit. It was his old ally, Scourge. What was he doing here? But there was no need to read his mind to get the answer, it was obvious enough. Both Scourge and Tails nodded at each other to acknowledge each other's presence.</p>
      <p>"It is because of that ever-present hostility" Tikal continued "That I am urging the Senate to vote against mutant registration. To force mutants to expose themselves will only further subject them to unnecessary prejudice."</p>
      <p>Senator Kelly smiled and at that moment the professor knew that Kelly is going to deliver a fatal blow.</p>
      <p>"Expose themselves?" Kelly asked, his voice calm and strong over the silent crowd as he played to the television cameras "What is that the mutant community has to hide?"</p>
      <p>"I didn't say that they had anything to hide!" Tikal said "What did I say…"</p>
      <p>"Let me show you what is being hidden" Senator Kelly shouted, he had raised up a blown-up photo of a car on a freeway. The car appeared to have been melted "This was taken by a state police officer in Texas. A man in a minor altercation literally melted the car in front of him"</p>
      <p>Professor Xavier set his jaw, the crowd was turning more and more fearful and hostile.</p>
      <p>"May I see this photo, Senator Kelly?" Tikal asked calmly.</p>
      <p>He ignored her question and spoke directly to the crowd and the cameras "This is not an isolated incident, Ms Grey"</p>
      <p>Kelly picked up the folder overflowing with documents and held it up to the crowd to see as if it was a trophy that he had won. "I have a list here of names here! Identified mutants, living in the United States!"</p>
      <p>"Mr. Kelly!" Tikal said in a forced calm voice</p>
      <p>But Senator Kelly appeared to have gone deaf "A girl in Illinois who can walk through walls! What is to stop her from walking into a bank vault? Or the white house?" He turned to face the cameras "Or your house?"</p>
      <p>Professor Xavier knew at that moment that they had lost. The crowd's anger and hostility were back in full force. Heated discussions and scattered debates erupted around the hall. Senator Kelly was getting them to ignore the facts and logic and to get them to focus at their own fears of the unknown</p>
      <p>"And there are rumours Ms Grey" Kelly said turning to stare at her as if he had forgotten all about her "Of mutants so powerful that they can enter our minds, control our thoughts, take away our own free will!"</p>
      <p>A number of people gasped at this statement</p>
      <p>"Ms Grey, some Americans deserve the right to decide whether they want their children to be in school with a mutant, to be taught by a mutant" Kelly said "You are a schoolteacher. I think that the rights of parents and students alike should be paramount importance to you."</p>
      <p>"Yes" Tikal said firmly "But this is not the way to help them, I would like to see that folder"</p>
      <p>"Why?" Kelly said, pounding the folder "All I am saying is that parents have the right to know the dangers to their children or what danger their children can bring. That is the purpose of the registration!"</p>
      <p>"No it is not!" Tikal said finally losing her paishence "Your purpose is to discriminate and torture a group of citizens just because you are afraid of them! Now I would like to see your so called list and evidence!"</p>
      <p>She held her hand out</p>
      <p>Suddenly the folder flew from Kelly's grasp towards Tikal's open hand. Realization dawned across her face and she immediately closed her hand, but the professor knew that the damage has already been done. The folder fell to the floor, flooding the floor with paper.</p>
      <p>Around him the professor can tell that everyone was uncertain what happened. And they were very afraid at the same time. It was clear to all of them that something unseen had come into play in this hearing, though none of them knew what it might be.</p>
      <p>The professor sighed and closed down his mind, shutting out the sensations of the people around him. They had lost this battle, that much was clear. "Ladies and gentlemen," Senator Kelly said, now more than ever playing for the cameras. "The truth is that mutants are very real and that they are among us. We must know who they are, and above all, we must know what they can do." The crowd broke into cheering around the professor as he turned and moved his wheelchair up the ramp toward the exit.</p>
      <p>It had been a long shot, and he knew it. From the almost-empty hallway outside the Hearing Room, the professor could hear the debate continuing as the few friendly senators tried to jump in to help Tikal. But they were quickly overwhelmed. It was clear that this bill would leave this hearing and make its way to the main floor of the Senate. That would be the next point at which it might be stopped. But he was going to have to do better, if it was going to happen.</p>
      <p>In front of the professor, a green hedgehog walked towards the main entrance. Scourge Lehnsherr.</p>
      <p>The professor moved his chair to follow him, and in a matter of minutes, he and the green hedgehog were alone on one of several maze like skywalks. The hedgehog stopped as if he knew that he was being followed  </p>
      <p>"What are you doing here?" The professor asked, just loud enough for Scourge to hear.</p>
      <p>Scourge stopped and half turned, smiling.</p>
      <p>"Why do you ask questions that you already know the answer to?" Scourge asked.</p>
      <p>The professor moved up closer, until they faced each other there in the high – ceilinged, tiled hallway. "Don't give up on them Scourge."</p>
      <p>"What would you have me do, Tails?" He asked "I've heard all these arguments before ever since what we did in Cuba. Used very well, if I remember."</p>
      <p>"That was a long time ago" The professor replied "They had evolved since then"</p>
      <p>"yes" Scourge said. "Into us"</p>
      <p>The professor paused for a moment, musing, then deciding to seek out what he decided to seek out what he wanted to know. Slowly and carefully, he reached out.</p>
      <p>Scourge put a palm against the side of his head, then smiled. "Are you sneaking around in here Tails?" Scourge clenched his fist and the professor's chair lifted ever so slightly off the ground as if it was gripped by a giant hand, as if in a subtle warning. "Whatever you are looking for?" Scourge asked, still smiling, but adding a slight edge to his words.</p>
      <p>"Hope, Scourge" The professor said calmly. "I am looking for hope"</p>
      <p>The chair settled back to the tile floor as if the giant hand has released it.</p>
      <p>"I will give you hope then" Scourge said "And I ask for one thing in return. Don't. Get. In. My. Way. Please"</p>
      <p>Scourge turned and walked away, without looking back he said "We are the future of the world Tails! Not them. They no longer matter."</p>
      <p>Behind him the professor can hear the debate continuing as his former ally pushed open the door and left. He hadn't responded to that last comment, because there was nothing left to be said. He didn't agree, and Scourge knew it.</p>
      <p>Regular people did matter. Now more than ever.</p>
      <p>"Prof?" A voice behind him said.</p>
      <p>The professor turned to see a white bat, who was wearing so much clothes it seemed to make sure that no skin on her body can be touched by anyone, and she was looking at the door that Scourge went through as if it was the reason of all her pain and suffering.</p>
      <p>"We have to be ready for war Rouge." The professor replied "not just with the senate, but with Magneto. Whatever he is planning, I don't like it. I don't like it at all"</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Lion's Den</h2></a>
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        <strong>Alberta, Canada</strong>
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      <p>The snow was falling steadily, a light powder – the only kind that could fall in such extreme temperatures. Even though it was still daylight, the spotlight over the front door of the lion's den Bar and Grill was on. It cut through the snow but was hopeless to illuminate the few cars on the lot, the armada of trucks and the single beat up camper that was almost buried in the snow. Attached to the back of the camper was an old trailer full of cord wood and a motorcycle that looked as if it will fall apart if a single snowflake falls on the right place. A small hand lettered sign on the trailer read 'firewood for sale'.</p>
      <p>The inside of the Lion's den was as anyone might expect from the outside. Low lighting, smoke filled, too many calendars with naked people on it and animal heads covered in dust and grease. This place was divided between a café on one side, and a bar on another.</p>
      <p>Shadow had been in hundreds of places like this. They all had decent food that the locals liked, served in ridiculously large portions. The drinks were either strong and bitter, or so sweet that it can dissolve your teeth. The customers are either regulars, truckers, felons, drug addicts or teen runaways. The regulars act as if you are invisible unless if you do something that either results in you getting chased out by an angry mob or get money thrown at you. In every one of the places, Shadow had been a stranger. Stopping to eat and have a few drinks, then moving on. He can't imagine ever settling down long enough to become a regular anywhere. His record was 9 days, and he had no intention on beating it.</p>
      <p>He had just finished eating on the café side of the joint, sitting in a booth, downing a bucket of coffee with his burger. Now he was at the bar, two stools down from an old very used jukebox that would be a pawnshop owners dream. A few drinks and he would be headed down the road again. There was still plenty of time left in the day just to make some miles. He had nowhere in particular that he wanted to go or nowhere in particular he wanted to be. He just liked to keep moving. It felt better this way.</p>
      <p>Unlike the café side, with its smell of chip grease, and vanilla coffee, the bar stank of stale beer and too many cigarettes, with the doors to the exit and the toilets acting as a shield that separated the two smells. The floor was a dirty tile, and the tables were all scared with carved in initials and epithets. At the moment there were four patrons sitting at two tables staring at him as if they were astronauts on the moon and he was a MacDonalds building. They were obviously regulars, and Shadow can tell that at least half of them had been in a jail cell. Drunk regulars. Very drunk regulars.</p>
      <p>He had ignored them when he came in, and he did the same now, sitting with his back to the main room and the main door. He knew he looked weird to most people. A black hedgehog with red stripes, too many quills, an animal like face. He got a lot of stares and had long since given up caring.</p>
      <p>The bartender, a tiger with a round, scared face moved in behind the bar. Shadow was just about to motion him over when some loud, foot stomping truckers came in. There was a grimy mirror ser in the wall behind the various bottles of booze at the bar and Shadow can see that there were truckers, all of them were pigs, that were big gutted, no doubt smelling of too many miles on the road, it was impossible to tell if they were men or women due to the shape of their body and their faces were so ugly that it made Shadow think that their parents were siblings, as were their grandparents and great grandparents. Shadow was glad he wasn't close enough to catch that odour.</p>
      <p>The five were escorting a hot pink hedgehog girl and a royal blue hedgehog boy, who looked to be between the age of 14 to 17. Clearly, they have been riding with one of them. The boy was attempting to shield the girl but is losing. They were all laughing, paying no attention, but Shadow watched as their eyes quickly seized up the place. No smile ever crossed their face. The two were obviously runaways.</p>
      <p>The girl was dressed as if she was about to do the dishes in the rain. She was wearing large yellow gloves, a yellow trench coat that was 10 times too big, sunglasses that looked as if it cost all the money in the world, a red headband, a pink shirt that matched her quills and a purple shorts that looked as if it came from a clothing donation bin.</p>
      <p>The boy was tall with sky scrapers for legs, he wore red running shoes that came a century too early, a red bandanna that looked like a relic from a cowboy movie and was wearing a large blue coat, he had the build of a world class runner, but the icy floor seemed to be mocking him, going somewhere along the lines of 'you can run on us or you will slip and look like an idiot'.</p>
      <p>He wondered for a moment what was going on, then he reminded himself to mind his own business. For Shadow, minding his own business was what kept him going for so long. He tapped his after-dinner cigar in the overflowing ashtray then motioned to the bartender.</p>
      <p>"Yeah?" The scarred tiger asked. He moved towards Shadow, while nodding to the truck drivers over Shadows shoulder. "What can I get you?"</p>
      <p>"Something on the tap" Shadow replied</p>
      <p>"What kind?"</p>
      <p>"Surprise me" Shadow replied wryly.</p>
      <p>The bartender turned away without so much as a blink. He was a big guy who nonetheless moved smoothly, which gave the impression he was moving slowly instead. Shadow had no doubt the bartender had taken care of himself in more than one fight in this place.</p>
      <p>The truck drivers were crowded into a booth with the young boy and girl sitting on a chair facing them. Shadow can hear them laughing again, but he paid no attention at all to what they were saying. In front of him an ancient TV was bolted in a wall in the corner above the back bar. The news was on.</p>
      <p>"Preparations are nearly completed for the upcoming United Nations world summit." The monotone news announcer said, "With nearly every invitation confirmed, the event promises to be the largest single gathering of world leaders in history."</p>
      <p>Shadow watched as the image on the screen changed from the announcers bored face to an aerial shot of Ellis Island, with the statue of liberty in the background.</p>
      <p>"The leaders of over two hundred nations will discuss issues from climate change, weapon treaties to the mutant phenomenon and its impact on our world stage."</p>
      <p>Shadow snorted, then shook his head. This mutant thing really had people spooked if it was coming down to discussing it at a world conference. And scared people had a habit of becoming dangerous. The bartender put down a beer in front of Shadow then turned to move away.</p>
      <p>"Is there anything else on?"</p>
      <p>The bartender shrugged and headed to the television. "Satellite is busted today. Only got two channels"</p>
      <p>He changed it from the news to a fuzzy image of a movie that seemed to have been written and directed by someone who read the stock exchange for laughs.</p>
      <p>"That all right?"</p>
      <p>"Perfect." Shadow said, taking a swig of his beer. It was cold and tasted fresh. At least places like this usually had good brews. Good food, good beer, what else can a guy ask for?</p>
      <p>"Hey Joe!" One of the drunk sounding regulars shouted</p>
      <p>The bartender looked up and frowned. "You ever seen a mutant before Joe?" The regular asked pointing at the television and slurring his words.</p>
      <p>Joe casually tossed the towel over his shoulder as he moved to take the trucker's order. "My son is a mutant, so watch your words carefully Rick."</p>
      <p>"Sorry, I forgot" The drink laughed, he clearly did know, he just wanted to get a reaction.</p>
      <p>Shadow watched in the mirror, sipping his beet and smoking his cigar, as the bartender moved to the drivers. He asked the young couple if they wanted anything, but they both shook their head. Then they both stood and came towards Shadow at the bar. The boy moving significantly faster than the girl. He masked his curiosity as they moved closer to him. He can smell their unwashed odour. The girl smelt like what a city smelt like after new years day with the strong smell of fireworks, the boy smelt strongly of sweat and cheap sports drinks. But he can also sense the overwhelming fear in the two of them. Deep fear.</p>
      <p>"Listen, can you help us?" The boy said quietly</p>
      <p>"Please! We were hitchhiking and these men and women won't let us go! I think they are going to…"</p>
      <p>"Hey!" One of the truck drivers said loudly.</p>
      <p>Shadow looked in the mirror. He was the largest of the pigs, and he stood and moved towards the bar. This guy moved like a lumbering elephant, though. Shadow sized him up and decided that even the mouse who was as skinny as a shrimp who worked in the kitchen can take him.</p>
      <p>"I thought you were just going to the bathroom" the trucker said to the girl's face loudly.</p>
      <p>"Yeah! What gives?" Yelled the female pig, who was walking to the bar, eyeing the boy as if he was a pile of gold. Both of their tones clearly indicated that the truckers had decided that the couple that they picked up was their property.</p>
      <p>The girl and the boy looked at Shadow, panic showing clearly in her eyes, the smell of fear spreading from them like a wave of sickness, choking the air.</p>
      <p>Shadow just sipped his beet, trying to ignore them, minding his own business was how he managed to get along and minding his own business was exactly was he was going to do. He had his own troubles and they had their own. Life is just tough that way.</p>
      <p>"Come on honey" The truck driver said. He reached out and grabbed her arm, attempting to remove her gloves.</p>
      <p>She pulled back, hard. Freaked. "Don't touch me! I told you don't touch me!"</p>
      <p>The hedgehog boy attempted to help, but he found himself embraced tightly by the large pig woman.</p>
      <p>He grabbed he again, successfully removing her glove, catching her hand "I said come on! Do as a I…"</p>
      <p>But the instant his hand touched hers there was the blinding colourful light, and a loud explosion like a firework and in seconds the pig was on the floor, clutching his hand that was now burnt as a crisp, screaming his lungs out in pain, the smell of fireworks overwhelming the other smells.</p>
      <p>Shadow glanced down at where the trucker layed screaming, then he turned his attention back at the girl who was shaking in fear and anger. "Nice Job" He said, betraying a voice of amusement.</p>
      <p>"Told ya not to touch me!" The girl said</p>
      <p>The woman who was embracing the hedgehog boy and the other truckers seemed to have frozen like a statue at this scene, and it was at that moment when the boy made his move, moving his legs at an otherworldly like speed, he kicked as hard as he can at the woman's legs. Perhaps a bit too hard, because there was a loud crack, and then a cry and the woman came crashing down on the floor, destroying an ancient stool that was carelessly left in the middle of the bar, and then she was out cold.</p>
      <p>The boy looked down at the sleeping woman and in a nanosecond, he was standing next to the girl embracing her in a large hug and whispering inaudible words to her ear. Shadow looked at this scene with something close to amusement. He can tell that the man pig will never use his right hand for a very long time, and that the woman will be on a wheelchair for a while.</p>
      <p>The woman's collapse seemed to have take the other three truckers out of their trance and they moved fast for a bunch of overweight bunch of rednecks.</p>
      <p>"Hank" One of them asked the man "Are you alright?"</p>
      <p>"Gina?" Another of the truckers yelled at the woman pig's face</p>
      <p>But the pig named Hank was screaming so loudly that he had gone deaf, and the woman called Gina had apparently decided to play sleeping beauty and had taught herself to sleep through anything.</p>
      <p>The couple instinctively stepped closer to Shadow, standing between the bar stools. Their individual smells putting him out of his beer.</p>
      <p>"Get her head up and get something for his burns!" another of the truckers yelled. Shadow laughed inwardly. That was always good advice if a person might have a broken neck, it would kill them instantly, and if the truckers were trying to stop the man's burns they may as well be the first people to step on the sun, it was pointless.</p>
      <p>"I'll call an ambulance" Joe the bartender said in a bored fashion, then he turned to the phone in the back of the bar, and seemed to take his time dialling 999. Shadow was beginning to like joe more and more.</p>
      <p>The trucker closest to Shadow grabbed the back of his shirt, and spun him around on the stool "Are you trying to be funny?" perhaps Shadow might have let out a tiny giggle after all "Come on, give me a reason not to stomp your ass!"</p>
      <p>Shadow put his cigar down in the ashtray. It still had half way to burn, and he didn't want to waste it. Then with a quick spin, he drove his elbow directly into the trucker's face. The feeling of smashing flesh and the sound of the guy's nose breaking were beautiful. Pure poetry.</p>
      <p>The trucker dropped to the tiled floor faster than his two friends had. Shadow shook his head. These guys were big, which meant they had more weight pulling them down. And clearly, they had no threshold for pain.</p>
      <p>"That excuse enough for you?" Shadow asked the driver as he lay there, clutching at his nose. The other two were on Shadow quick, considering their size. He let them pin his arms, let them think they had him, as they held him one on each side.</p>
      <p>If they really wanted a fight, he might as well enjoy himself a little. Might not get this chance again for a while. The guy with the busted nose slowly climbed to his feet and faced Shadow, who was now pinioned between the trucker's two friends. Blood streamed down the guy's chin and dripped on his fat gut, turning his already stained shirt dark. Shadow just smiled, which further infuriated the guy even more, and he reared back, he loaded all his anger into his fist and hit Shadow square in the face.</p>
      <p>Shadow moved his head slightly, timing the turn with the punch. The blow hit him solidly across his chin. He'd felt worse before. Not only was this gut fat, he betted that he can lose a fist fight to a 13 year old girl.</p>
      <p>The guy looked surprised, and he held his hand as if he had hit a metal wall, which in a way he had. "Pathetic" Shadow said.</p>
      <p>A trucker with a broken nose took another full swing, this time hitting Shadow in the gut. Shadow doubled over, pretending that the guy had actually hurt him. As he was bent over, he clenched his fists and pushed the knuckles of each and against a leg of one of his approaching captors.</p>
      <p>Then he popped his claws. Twelve-inch metal claws shot from behind his knuckles. Six razor-sharp claws stabbed through cloth, skin, and muscle as if it weren't there. The sound of metal echoed across the room.</p>
      <p>Shadow pulled his claws back in quickly. Both truckers suddenly shouted in pain and let go, each grabbing his leg. The bloody-nosed trucker stared at his two friends as they collapsed to the floor and screamed in pain, blood flowing from their legs. "What did you do?" he demanded, panic beginning to edge into his voice.</p>
      <p>Shadow stepped toward the man. He was no longer grinning. "You always ask the same stupid question?" The guy backed away, slowly, grabbing glasses off of tables and throwing them on the ground between them. Then he picked up a metal bar tray, holding it between himself and Shadow.</p>
      <p>Shadow's fist shot out. His claws extended again and skewered the tray. He yanked it out of the trucker's hand and tossed it away. Then Shadow grabbed the man's bloodied shirt, shoving the guy's head hard against the rough wooden wall. He was going to scare this guy, and scare him good. While holding his opponent against the wall, he held up his fist, claws extended. Then he reared back and made a forward motion, as if to punch the guy, claws and all. Behind him, the girl and the boy screamed as his claws sank into the wall on both sides of the guy's neck.</p>
      <p>His middle claw had withdrawn just enough so that it only pricked the surface of the guy's neck. The trucker looked as if he might faint, or be sick. Either way, this just wasn't fun any longer. What Shadow really wanted to do was fight. So he withdrew his claws. "Run," he said into the trucker's face. The man tripped over himself as he scrambled for the door, clearly not caring about his friends, who were still writing in pain on the floor.</p>
      <p>The all too familular sound of a gun being fired and emptied reached Shadow's ears, but before he can feel the all too familiar stinging pain, the was a loud rushing sound like the wind, and then a cry, and one of the drunks who was standing right behind Shadow and was holding a cheap revolver was lying down on the floor, the boy hedgehog standing over him, clenching his fist that was full of something. Shadow realised that somehow the boy had not only caught all the badly aimed bullets aimed at Shadow, but had knocked him out. Then the boy and the girl simply vanished.</p>
      <p>Shadow moved back up to the bar. "Sorry about the mess, but they started it," he said, nodding at the men on the floor. "Add the repairs to their check." He picked up his half-finished cigar, put enough money on the bar to pay for his beer, and headed out into the snow.</p>
      <p>There was still time to make some miles. Outside, he stopped and looked around. The girl and the boy was nowhere to be seen. Too bad for her. He might have offered them a ride if they had waited around long enough for him to get finished with his fun. He shrugged and climbed into his camper, turning the key and gunning it to life. Then he drove hard and fast through the snow to get it out onto the road. He was a half mile down the highway when the odour reached him.</p>
      <p>He took his cigar out of his mouth and sniffed again just to be sure. He smelt fireworks, burnt skin, bullets, beer, sweat, and cheap sports drinks. Shadow sighed and hit the brakes. No one was going to hitch a ride without his permission. He didn't care how young they were, he didn't care if one of them had apparently saved his life and he didn't care how much trouble they could be in.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Crash</h2></a>
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        <strong>Alberta, Canada</strong>
      </p>
      <p>Amy Jubiliee Rose, and Sonic Hedgehog both hugged each other under the tarp, shivering next to the cold metal of a motorcycle, as the camper slid to a stop on a slick road. For a moment the two thought about making a run for it, but where to? The truckers? The bar? It was snowing, and even though Sonic's speed can make the two of them reach the bar in a matter of seconds, the ice and the snow made Sonic's speed useless, and they would both freeze to death before they both got very far.</p>
      <p>Maybe the guy was stopping for another reason, if they can just stay in here until they reached a town, then they can get out and work something out from there. They both held their breath, trying not to move at all as the intense quiet of the Canadian wilderness closed in around the camper, both thinking about all the events that led her to this moment.</p>
      <p>Amy remembered a particularly stressful maths homework session about volumes. Her mother was getting a bit frustrated, "Come on Amy! It's so easy!" However, the diagram of the swimming pool seemed to have been designed by someone who drew it while drunk, blindfolded, and they had drawn it with their feet. She wasn't very good at school work, the only thing that so much as interested her was History and Chemistry, unfortunately in order to take Chemistry she would also have to pick up maths, and her austere maths teacher, a Miss Lewis, loves to hand out daily homework that can take a ridiculous amount of time to complete unless if you had a computer in your brain. Why can't she be like Mr. Queen, her Chemistry teacher who always did some kind of experiment with them, and you are more likely to win the lottery, get struck by lightning and get hit a meteorite on the same day than end a lesson with Mr. Queen that doesn't involve an experiment that doesn't involve some kind of fire, or explosion of some sort.</p>
      <p>She remembered holding the paper straight up to her face as if she can find the answer written in small print, and then the paper burst into flames, she heard loud bangs that sounded like firecrackers, she saw colourful sparks, millions of them, colours that didn't exist. Her fascination quickly turned to horror as she realized the colours set fire to everything it touched, her peaceful, well decorated room immediately turned into an inferno, her mother...turned into a fireball…and…Amy surprised the memories of what happened after the fire, she refused to think about it.</p>
      <p>Her only best friend, Sonic Hedgehog was thinking the same unpleasant thoughts as his friend. Ever since he was young Sonic was a superstar at every sport imaginable, that winning to hm was like blinking. He won so many awards and trophy's that they had to turn the garage and the basement as his trophy room. At school he was the centre of attention, everyone wanted a piece of him, most of the girls there had a crush on him, as did half of the boys, everyone wanted to sit as close to him as possible and if you sit next to him or were on a 1st name basis with Sonic or get invited to one of his parties, you were treated like god.</p>
      <p>That was until he was doing a relay race during sports day against another school. He was the penultimate person before the final person who crosses the finishing line. He was reluctant to let someone else do this, let alone the 4th fastest person in the school, Miakh or whatever his name is. However, his teacher told him of for his lack of teamwork and threatened to pull him out of the running race that was after the relay race, and Sonic reluctantly agreed. He remembered waiting for his partner that was moving slower than a snail, he remember the passing of the baton which felt as if it had been in the centre of the sun, he remembers the cheering of the crowd some of which were cheering his name, then the slight slip and fall, and the groan from the crowd. Apparently, somebody had found it amusing to place a pencil on his track, and Sonic was down on the ground the instant his foot made contact with it. He picked up the pencil, it had the logo of the other school, and it seemed to be raising the middle figure at him. He remembered the students from the other school laughing, and that made Sonic see red, he was going to go through the finishing line, teamwork or not. He started running and running, for some reason, he felt that with each second he seemed to be getting faster, and before Sonic had time to blink, he wasn't just getting up on the racetrack floor, but far ahead of everyone else, but he didn't care he kept on running, his anger getting the better of him, he was through the finishing line! He had won! He had made a victory for the red team! Red team? No. He was on the white team, the other school was in red, so why had his bib turned red? He turned his head to look behind him, nobody was making a sound, in fact everyone was a quiet and as still as a statue. He saw what remained of…of…Sonic nearly threw up thinking about it.</p>
      <p>It was at that moment that the entire world had turned against him, he turned from the most respected person in the community to an outcast in a matter of seconds. He can't remember everything that happened the day after, all he can remember is that everyone whispered the word 'mutant' and 'should have known' and 'he almost killed him!'. So, that night he packed up his bag and left. He knew that even if he decided to stay, the result would be the same, and he chose the right time because if he had left an hour later, he would have been confronted with an angry mob wanting to blow up his home.</p>
      <p>He found Amy at the same stretch of highway. He knew that she vanished ever since her home burnt down a week ago, and he can tell that the two of them were both alike and they both unanimously decided to stay with one another. They even made a blood oath to swear to never leave one another.</p>
      <p>That was almost a year ago, and after so many things happening to them, they were now here they were hiding in the stinking bathroom of a black and red hedgehog who clearly had strange abilities like them. The two of them didn't know why they asked for him for help in the bar. Something about him, even though he was the hairiest person they had ever seen, had seemed to have drawn to them. He looked like a beast, and when those claws had popped out of his fist it had scared them.</p>
      <p>So why were they here? How he had easily dealt with the three truckers had startled them, but they can't defend the fact that one of them had made them permanently left handed, and made the other be on a wheelchair for a considerable amount of time, and one does not catch 6 bullets as they were being fired without some sort of bravery. But then why did they run away? God only knows.</p>
      <p>Outside in the snow, they both saw the camper, and for some reason they can tell that it must be his, figuring he would be leaving right behind them. They had thought it would be their best choice from getting away from there. They can hide until they stopped in a town, then jump off and run away.</p>
      <p>But now, with the camper at the side of the road, a good distance from anywhere, it didn't seem like a good choice at all.</p>
      <p>The door to the camper bursts open, and the trailer rocked as the hairy man climbed out. They can both smell the biting odour of his cigar. Maybe he was getting something, then would get back to driving. They both held their breath, embracing one another.</p>
      <p>"Get out."</p>
      <p>The voice seemed to come down on them like a sledgehammer. Even though it had spoken in a relatively calm voice, it sounded as if it was their executioner speaking to them. He knew that they were there. Sonic made the move first, he eased the back of the tarp, and for once in his life, slowly climbed out, with Amy following him.</p>
      <p>The black and red hedgehog stood there, facing them across the small space. The door to the camper was still wide open, Sonic could run out of there, but he would have to face to elements and abandon Amy, which the two had sworn never to do.</p>
      <p>"Where are we supposed to go?" Amy demanded with faint defiance.</p>
      <p>"I don't know." The black hedgehog said "Get out"</p>
      <p>They moved past him, the cold air biting at their face. "You don't know, or you just don't care?" Amy mumbled under her breath.</p>
      <p>"Pick one" The black hedgehog replied as if he had sonar ears "Get out"</p>
      <p>They stepped down into the snow and walked a few steps away, stopping behind the trailer.</p>
      <p>The black hedgehog turned on his heels, got back into the camper and slammed the door. A moment later the truck's tires were spinning, and the camper pulled away.</p>
      <p>Sonic looked behind him and glanced around. There was nothing out here, the cold was getting to him, and the route back to the bar was snowy, icy and hilly, which goes as well as gasoline and fire in terms of his superspeed. He found that out after an incident in Oregon.</p>
      <p>The camper's taillights were almost invisible in the snow when suddenly the brake lights flared. After a moment, a voice called out.</p>
      <p>"I am not going to wait forever."</p>
      <p>Sonic and Amy exchanged a look and they both smiled. For all his gruff exterior, he can't leave someone out to die.</p>
      <p>They walked out where he was parked on the road and climbed into the passenger seat, which was full of everything in the alphabet, from a model of an abbey to a shield from a Zulu warrior, it was littered with everything imaginable. "Thanks" Sonic and Amy said in unison as Shadow started up the engine.</p>
      <p>Shadow didn't say anything as she shoved the camper into gear and spun back into motion. The silence in the cab was tense.</p>
      <p>Amy fiddled with her gloves and a rubrics cube that she had acquired that she can now solve with her eyes closed. Sonic chose this was the moment to take one of his quick power naps, and had decided that Amy's legs was the ideal pillow, and Shadow smoked his cigar and drove. The windshield wipers were hopeless against the now blizzard, and Amy doubted if she can see the road in front of her. Considering that the two landed road was tree lined and had sudden curves, he was driving too fast, but he drove as if he and the camper were one.</p>
      <p>"So, what is your name?" She asked tentatively.</p>
      <p>The back hedgehog chewed on his cigar for a moment, focusing on the road, then he finally answered "Shadow. Yours? And what is your boyfriend's name?"</p>
      <p>Amy Rose was tempted to say her first name, but she decided to say the nickname that her late father had given her before he died when she was 9. "Jubilee, and he calls himself Sonic, he likes to call me Jubilee Rose, but I prefer Jubilee"</p>
      <p>They sat in silence once again for a few long moments. The snow seemed to be coming down even harder as if the snow had decided to experiment if can bury the car when it is in motion.</p>
      <p>"What kind of a name is Jubilee? And Sonic?" Shadow said gruffly</p>
      <p>She liked the name Jubilee, it was almost sentimental to her, and Sonic liked his name as much as she liked her nick name. "What kind of name is Shadow?" Jubilee Rose replied.</p>
      <p>Shadow nodded, chewing at the end of the cigar as if Jubilee Rose had made a reasonable point. The silence continued broken only by the sound of the hostile environment outside.</p>
      <p>Finally, after a long period of silence, she asked "How long have you known?"</p>
      <p>"Known what?" he asked glancing at her.</p>
      <p>"That you were, you know, like me and him?" Jubilee Rose said. She knew that other mutants had existed with special powers like her and Sonic. She knew a boy who can make multiple copies of himself however he disappeared before she can even speak to him.</p>
      <p>"I'm not like you" Shadow replied withdrawing another cigar and lighting it up. He blew a large cloud of smoke between his face and the windshield. Jubilee Rose knew that he was telling a lie.</p>
      <p>"Right" Jubilee Rose said chuckling "Your just a normal, everyday claw guy who has metal claws in his hands like almost every guy around here. Ya! Just your normal every day guy"</p>
      <p>"Listen kid" Shadow said "Right now the only thing you two have done to endear yourself to me is to get three big truckers to attack me. Now granted, that was kind of fun, and I found your act of nearly blowing up that guys hand amusing and your boyfriends speed act was impressive. So I am cutting you some slack. Any more chatter and the slack will run out. So the only time I want to hear something out of your voice is only in emergencies or if I speak to you understand?"</p>
      <p>She smiled, staring through the snow at the faint outline of the mountain road. Then she said "You know, you should wear your seatbelt"</p>
      <p>"What did I tell you?" He asked, but she could tell that he was almost smiling. Almost.</p>
      <p>"You said to speak only in emergencies or when spoken to. I think you not wearing a seat belt counts as an emergency."</p>
      <p>Shadow was about to think of some sort of retort when the next instant the world seemed to end. Something big toppled in front of them from Shadow's side falling directly across the road. He reacted, but he had no chance of success. The camper came to an almost instant stop.</p>
      <p>Jubilee Rose was smashed against her seatbelt. He head snapped forward, then backward, banging on the panel behind her.</p>
      <p>Sonic was thrown of the seat, and his head came into contact with a large baseball bat, effectively knocking him out cold before he had the chance to open his eyes.</p>
      <p>Shadow was tossed hard through the windshield, bouncing and tumbling down the road like a rag doll.</p>
      <p>Out her side window the trailer full of wood and the motorcycle shot past, tumbling end over end, the trailer's contents scattering like leaves in the wind. To Jubilee Rose it seemed as if everything in the camper suddenly piled around her, shoving her forward, and half burying Sonic. She could see Shadow's body through the broken-out windshield. Snow swirled in and around her face as everything finally came to a stop.</p>
      <p>They had hit a massive falling tree. The force of the impact had shoved it forward and to one side. From where she sat, it was clear that this truck wasn't going to be going anywhere again anytime soon. The hood and front end were wrapped around the log. The silence now seemed almost heavy. She sat there, trying to catch her breath, trying to stop her heart from pounding out of her chest. It was the first time she had ever been in an automobile accident. It had happened so fast. Then through the snow she saw movement. Shadow was alive. How was that possible?</p>
      <p>In the road ahead, he climbed to his feet, brushing himself off "Damn It!" He cried</p>
      <p>She sat there, staring at him in shock. Nobody can survive being tossed through a truck windshield, then bouncing down the asphalt like he had done. He had to be dead, or at least seriously injured. Yet here he was, walking to her, swearing under his breath, as if he had got a paper cut.</p>
      <p>As he got closer, she could see that there were gashes in his cheek and forehead. Deep, bleeding cuts that were going to need treatment immediately. Then, as she watched, the gashes stopped bleeding and began to heal up. That wasn't possible.</p>
      <p>Shadow didn't seem to notice, or think anything was out of the ordinary. Then she realized that her ability to create fireworks was also not possible. Yet she did it.</p>
      <p>"You aright?" Shadow asked, stopping in front of the truck and staring at her through the windshield.</p>
      <p>"I'm fine" She said, peering down at Sonic, she can tell that he is still breathing, and is perfectly fine. "So is he"</p>
      <p>Shadow nodded and studied the tree they had hit, walking along it toward the shattered trunk, shaking his head. From what Jubilee Rose could tell, the tree had come off the side of the cliff, probably brought down by the heavy snow.</p>
      <p>She was still shaking so much that she didn't even want to try to move. Instead she just sat, trying to get herself to relax, and tried to wake Sonic up, by pulling him up to his seat. As Shadow climbed up to check the base of the shattered tree, a hand punched out of a large snowdrift right beside him: a huge, clawed hand that grabbed him by the back of the jacket.</p>
      <p>Jubilee Rose screamed as a snow-covered monster rose up, towering over Shadow. It picked him up and swung him around, tossing him into the cliff side with enough force that Jubilee Rose could feel the ground shake even from where she was. The creature stood there, staring at where it had thrown Shadow. Jubilee Rose saw that it wasn't actually an animal, but a large hedgehog with black and grey fur with long yellow hair, wearing animal hides, and he had no visible mouth, but at intervals it appeared to show rows of iron like teeth and he had cat's eyes, and he was the ugliest thing Jubilee Rose had ever seen.</p>
      <p>As the creature stepped toward Shadow, Jubilee Rose tried to move. The seat in front of her had been shoved forward and was jammed by it. Her legs were trapped under the chair, and the lever was out of her reach and looked to be broken. The more she fought to get them free, the more it hurt. She tried shoving the passenger door open, but it, too, was stuck, so she went back to feeling around her legs with her hands, trying to find anything she could move to get free.</p>
      <p>Then behind her she heard a slight crackling sound. She twisted around, expecting to see another creature, but what she saw through the cracked camper was something far worse. Fire. The camper was on fire. She went back to fighting to free her legs. Through the windshield she could see Shadow emerge from the snow, clearly angry. With one backhand slap, the fur-covered man smashed Shadow into a tree how strong was this thing?</p>
      <p>Shadow came up rolling, his claws extended. "You want a fight Mephilius? I will give you a fight old friend!"</p>
      <p>Shadow slashed at the man.</p>
      <p>Missed.</p>
      <p>Slashed again.</p>
      <p>Missed again, as the man creature moved quickly out of the way. The thing grabbed Shadow's wrist and, using Shadow's wrist and, using Shadow's own forward momentum, picked him up and swung him 360 degrees, smashing him into the log. The log shattered like a brick on glass.</p>
      <p>Jubilee Rose fought even harder now, she had to get away from the fire, to pull Sonic out to get away from this beast.</p>
      <p>Shadow was stunned but he still tried to stagger to his feet. The huge hedgehog picked Shadow up like a pillow, held him in the air, then tossed him 20 feet back through the remains of the truck's windshield.</p>
      <p>Jubilee Rose managed to cover her face and turn slightly in the seat as Shadow smashed into her, unconscious as Sonic.</p>
      <p>Behind her the fire spread, smoke was pouring through the cab and up into the falling snow.</p>
      <p>The man-creature stood, staring at her with its cat's eyes. They almost seemed to be glowing. "Mister," Jubilee Rose said, shaking Shadow. "Mister, wake up, okay?" She shook him harder, while still trying to pull her legs free. "Come on, come on," she said as the man-creature stepped toward the burning camper. "Please wake up."</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The arrival</h2></a>
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        <strong>Alberta, Canada</strong>
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      <p>Bunnie Rabbot, now going under the nickname of Storm shifted awkwardly in the X Men jet's seat, trying to get comfortable. Beside her in the pilot's seat, the red echidna called Knuckles, now going under the nickname of Cyclops dozed lightly, his visor strapped firmly to his face. The last two hours had dragged inexorably past the infinite white snow around them falling hard, covering everything. On the tracking monitor, their subject, Sabretooth, was still a half mile away, stopped. Waiting. They had no idea for what, but he was clearly waiting. And so were they.</p>
      <p>Sabretooth, aka Mephilius was a mutant whose abilities had manifested themselves as animal strength, speed, stamina, sight and smell. From what she had learned in their permission briefing, Sabretooth had been helping Magneto. Why the professor had wanted them to track Sabretooth out here into the middle of nowhere in the Canadian wilderness is anyone's guess, and he hadn't bothered to tell them, even if he knew.</p>
      <p>But Bunnie didn't know a lot about the relationship between the professor and Magneto. All she had gleaned was that they seemed to be old friends, fighting in different ways for the same cause, and the newest fully-fledged member of the X men, Rouge had overheard something that the two of them had worked together on in Cuba.</p>
      <p>She and Cyclops had just been told to trail Sabretooth until something happened. They would know when it did, the professor had said. She certainly hoped so. Storm glanced around at the raging blizzard falling around the jet. She could see the nearby outline of a highway and the snow-covered trees and rocks. She could stop the blizzard around them if she wanted, but at the moment she didn't mind at all. It was soothing, almost relaxing. She had a feeling about weather, could touch it, and almost any type of weather was good as far as she was concerned. This snowstorm was certainly a far cry from the arid heatwave of her native Kenya, and the first time she had seen snow there was the day she had caused it, the day the other kids of her village had tortured her, the day she come into her powers.</p>
      <p>After a brief period where she was a pickpocket with her uncle in Cairo, Professor Miles Tail Xavier had found her, and at that time she certainly had next to no idea to do with herself at that point. No mutant did, when first coming into his or her powers, there was no way any of them could. It was something completely unexpected, and in this world that feared mutants, certainly none of them had been trained to cope. Until now.</p>
      <p>She had been lucky. The professor had found herm and had offered her the training and education that she had needed. She knew that there were thousands of others out there who weren't getting the breaks that she had received and she was determined to help them, at least as much as she could.</p>
      <p>The sound of a hard crash echoed though the trees, waking Cyclops from his light sleep. He glanced at her, his powerful energy gaze contained and controlled by the visor covering his eyes.</p>
      <p>"What was that?"</p>
      <p>"Darned if I know"</p>
      <p>They both studied the scope. Three other blips were now stopped where their subject was located, just down the highway. "Seems Sabretooth found a way to stop traffic."</p>
      <p>Cyclops laughed "What traffic? We had not seen a car in hours"</p>
      <p>"Let's go" Storm said.</p>
      <p>As they climbed out of the jet, she created a warm breeze around them that held most of the snow back. Better they face whatever was going on fresh and dry and ready to fight.</p>
      <p>Within a few seconds they were headed at a fast walk up the road, her breeze and their form fitting X men uniforms keeping them warm and comfortable, despite the sub-zero temperatures of the Canadian forest.</p>
      <p>It wasn't ling until they saw exactly what was happening. As they moved around a slight curve in the road, they could see where a camper had hit a downed tree, smashing the camper and scattering the contents of a trailer that it had been pulling. The camper was on fire, with two people trapped in the passenger seats. One was unconscious, the other was in shock.</p>
      <p>Sabretooth was fighting with another man, and as Storm watched, Sabretooth picked up the man like a rag doll and smashed him through the windshield and judging by the force of the throw it was a miracle that the man was alive.</p>
      <p>But it was clear that the two kids in the camper was still alive and the girl was struggling to get out, clearly trapped, and now she had a dead weight on top of her.</p>
      <p>Side by side, Storm and Cyclops moved up and stood 20 paces behind Sabretooth. The hulking mutant started towards the camper; then he must have sensed them.</p>
      <p>He turned, then growled with a low, mean rumble, like an angry animal. He even looked like one, with the skins and the black and grey quills.</p>
      <p>"Seems we aren't welcome company" Cyclops said.</p>
      <p>Sabretooth charged at them, moving quickly on the snow covered road.</p>
      <p>Storm stepped aside as Cyclops fired a hot red beam from his eyes. The beam hit Sabretooth square in the chest.</p>
      <p>Hard.</p>
      <p>Sabretooth roared as the beam picked him up and flipped him through the air as if fired from a cannon, end over end, smashing though the high branches of the trees and disappearing in a snapping of limbs and brush.</p>
      <p>Storm nodded, their foe wasn't going to be coming back any time soon. The only sound now was the crackiling of the fire in the camper. Storm ran over to the passenger side seeing instantly that the inferno was close to the camper's propane tank. She kicked up a swirling wind filled with snow and rain to douse the fire, but it wasn't going to work quickly enough. The flames were just too close to the tank and too hot to be put out easily, seeing that saving the camper is pointless, she threw open the door, and pulled out the unconscious blue hedgehog, then turned her attention to the black and red hedgehog in the windshield.</p>
      <p>Cyclops had also run to the other side of the camper and was trying to pull the girl out.</p>
      <p>"Don't touch me!" The girl shouted "You will blow up like ah firework! Just help me get this seat loose! I can't move my legs!"</p>
      <p>Cyclops focused carefully and used his optic beam to dislodge the seat behind the trapped girl. The seat snapped and came loose. The girl quickly climbed out and over the hood of the camper, dropping to the ground. At the same time, Storm pulled the unconscious hedgehog free, and it was when the fire finally reacted with the propane tank.</p>
      <p>"Thanks." The girl said facing Cyclops, then she collapsed.</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. The Professor</h2></a>
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        <strong>Magneto's Headquaters</strong>
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      <p>The large green frog known as Mortimer Toynbee laughed when Sabretooth came through the tunnel in the rock and into the laboratory. He was alone.</p>
      <p>The lab was a massive space, with towering cliffs of rocks, trees and a giant meadow filled with the machine. Magneto's machine. It sat like a modern statue in the middle of the clearing, its polished metal thrusting toward the invisible roof above, and it gleamed a sparkling gold that it almost made it appear that it was priceless. Toynbee had been painting the bottom of the machine, carefully, so as not to miss even the slightest spot, which he knew he had, but Sabretooth's failure would make Scourge forget about the decorations of his machine.</p>
      <p>"Wern't you supposed to bring somebody back with you?" He asked sarcastically. Toynbee was mote often called Toad, (or Froggie when Sabretooth was in a mocking mood.) due largely to his agility, his ability to leap great distances, his long tongue and his superhuman strength.</p>
      <p>Sabretooth paused and turned his face Toad, who only sneered and went back to work. With a growl Sabretooth moved on into Magneto's personal study, through another tunnel in the rock. Magneto watched him come, shaking his head. Around him the walls of his large study were stark, made of polished stone and metal, just the way he liked it. The space had one time been a cave, but he had changed it for his own purposes, placing a giant desk under a simple light source, covering the floor with polished tiles.</p>
      <p>"My instructions were simple" the green hedgehog said, keeping his voice low and level, not letting his anger seep into the words. "In fact, I made them that way especially for you. And you were unable to retrieve our friend! He is essential for half of the operation!"</p>
      <p>Sabretooth moved across the room though the shadows and stopped in front of Scourge's desk. The smell if the hides he wore carried over to him, but he ignored it.</p>
      <p>"So, what happened, brother?"</p>
      <p>"Xavier's people," Sabretooth said, his voice low and almost a growl. "They knew"</p>
      <p>Magneto nodded and sat back in his chair, musing. Miles Tails was going to be a little harder to beat than he had first thought, however, he had to admit that Sabretooth might have made it easier to get the next person vital for this operation as well as the friend that Sabretooth was supposed to bring.</p>
      <p>"Good for you, Tails" Magneto said to himself "Good for you"</p>
      <p>Then Magneto caught a glimpse of the metal dog tags hanging around Sabretooth's neck. He held out his hand, summoning the tags to him. They snapped off Sabretooth's neck and flew through the air, dropping into his hand. He inspected the tags, staring at the one word at the bottom that didn't seem to belong: Wolverine.</p>
      <p>"Strange," Magneto said to himself. Then he looked up at Sabretooth. "Where is the mutant now?" "With Xavier's people," Sabretooth said. Magneto nodded, tossing the tags across the desk back to Sabretooth. Then he pushed himself away from the desk, stood, and headed around the desk.</p>
      <p>"I have made the first move. That is all they know, because that is all you know." He headed for the door. "Come. We only have three days." Sabretooth shrugged, grabbed the tags off the desk, and turned to follow.</p>
      <p>"Lucky for you, Fiona will enact the plan"</p>
      <p>
        <strong>X Men Mansion – Westchester County, NY</strong>
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      <p>Amy slowly came back to consciousness, like a swimmer twenty feet down, stroking for the surface of the lake. She was strongly reminded of something that happened a lifetime ago when she went to camp for the summer and a sneering councillor had challenged her to see if she can swim to the bottom. The light slowly got brighter and brighter as her scenes came back to her, and her memories.</p>
      <p>Amy can tell that she was lying on her back on some sort of padded bed in a very sterile place. Some sort of hospital or lab, more than likely, and a nurse wearing too much perfume was leaving the room.</p>
      <p>Curiosity is a curious thing. Sometimes people cower away from it, thinking that ignorance is bliss, sometimes people magically pull themselves together and know where and when to stop. Then there are those so determined to know absolutely everything they are wiling to risk everything and break goodness knows how many rules just to get the satisfaction that they deserve. Amy Jubilee Rose most defiantly belonged to the last example. If she sees one of her friends or teachers do something strange or odd, she will get into the bottom of it no matter what the consequence were. This of course got her into a lot of trouble.</p>
      <p>One time, she hid in the recycling bin in her teachers' home after coming to the conclusion that he was having an affair but was actually giving his sister in law theory after she recently became a widow, and she was convinced that her neighbour had murdered her husband, but she was only rehearsing for a play. So naturally after she was rescued by someone who can shoot lasers out of his eyes and someone who can control the weather, and then wakes up in a strange, sterile place one does not simply sit and stick around especially one with a curiosity like Amy.</p>
      <p>She had no idea where she was or for that matter where Shadow or Sonic was, and she was determined to find out. She jumped off the bed and ran like a ninja to the door that the woman had just went through. The sooner she found out what was going on, the better.</p>
      <p>The hallway on the other side of the door was just like the lab that she had left, sterile, silver tiled and very quiet.</p>
      <p>Deathly quiet.</p>
      <p>Where the hell was, she?</p>
      <p>She ran down the hall hoping to see some sort of sign that can point her to something that can tell her where she was and the location of her friend and new acquaintance. She did see other doors but something in her told he that it won't take her to them.</p>
      <p>The walls were all soundproof, she couldn't heat anything at all. No sounds of people, machinery, distant traffic, not even the A/C or even a water pipe. Nothing.</p>
      <p>The first door that she came to that wasn't closed, or didn't look locked, or had a key pad, she looked though.</p>
      <p>It was a fairly large room, and very clean. One side of the room contained lockers, with a padded bench sitting in front of them, the other was full of spandex and leather uniforms hanging side by side, each tagged with a strange 'X' insignia, and on the other side…</p>
      <p>Amy quickly realised that she was looking into the boys changing room and decided to look elsewhere. The next door intrigued Amy, she opened it cautiously thinking that someone was in it, but it was completely empty, except for a painting of the Statue of Liberty and a painting that seemed to have come out of a Jack London novel, and the doors of a lift.</p>
      <p>Without thinking, Amy strolled to the lift button and pressed it. It opened with a deafening DING!</p>
      <p>"Is that you Colossus?" A voice from the corridor yelled "I thought you were teaching history right now"</p>
      <p>Amy, realising that she was about to be caught, leaped into the lift and frantically pressed the 'G' button and pressed the close button as if her life depended on it. Amy then realised that she had to deal with whatever was waiting when the lift doors opened, but she didn't care. 'At least I'll get the answers I need' she thought.</p>
      <p>The lift seemed to be taking her into space and after a while, which was 45 seconds. The doors opened to a very empty hallway that couldn't make more of an opposite to the hallway below. In fact, Amy felt as if she time travelled to the 18th or 19th century. The hallway was wide and stately, with a high ceiling and furniture and paintings that looked to be worth a fortune lined the walls. Plush carpet softened her footsteps and the overwilling smell of well 'old' reeked her nose. From down the hall she can hear a voice, so she headed that way, staying to one side to hear what the voice was saying.</p>
      <p>"The Roman empire, for centuries, persecuted and ostracized the Christians to the extent that they were fed for sport. Then almost overnight, their religion became the dominate faith in the empire after one of the emperors became one. Can anyone tell me which emperor it is?"</p>
      <p>'What the…!?' Amy thought. From where she was standing, she can see a door that was slightly ajar and in the toom she can see what looked to be a giant armadillo, who's skin was made of metal! He was standing in front of a dozen or so thirteen to nineteen-year-old children, half of which looked strange, why one of them had no skin and she can see her…is it a her or a his? She can see it's skeleton as well as all of it's organs.</p>
      <p>Amy turned back and moved away quickly, heading down the hallway toward a brighter area.</p>
      <p>The hallway expanded into a sort of foyer, with a high ceiling and a massive antique chandelier. Beside the hall, which led off in both directions, the main way in and out of the foyer was a double oaken door.</p>
      <p>Down the hall the lift that she had used dinged faintly again, warning her that someone was coming up, most likely after her. And from the other direction she could hear the sounds of two people's footsteps on the carpet. She clearly had no other choice. She sprang for the oaken door, opened it silently, and stepped inside, closing it just as silently behind herself.</p>
      <p>"Good morning, Amy" A voice said.</p>
      <p>Amy san around and came face to face with a yellow 2 tailed fox that both looked very old and very young at the same time, who was sitting behind a large mahogany desk. Sitting in front of him was Sonic who turned and smiled at her in relief, and (in some restraints) Shadow who looked as if he was about to kill someone. Behind the fox was a white bat that looked 'big' and a wolf girl that looked as if she had walked into something she was not supposed to be in, and not Amy.</p>
      <p>"Sorry, Professor, I just forgot my book" The wolf said.</p>
      <p>The fox nodded and the wolf grabbed a book that was on the floor, and she ran toward the wall. Amy tried to yell to see if she can stop her. But she didn't slow down, instead she simply ran through the door as if it weren't there.</p>
      <p>Amy looked at the yellow wall where she had disappeared then back at the fox she had called "Professor"</p>
      <p>The man held up a textbook as if it explained everything "Engineering" he said. Then, "Do you want some breakfast?"</p>
      <p>Amy stared at him. "Where are we?" Amy said, setting herself down on a comfortable chair that seemed to be more expensive than her parent's home.</p>
      <p>"Westchester, New York" The Fox said. "You three were attacked, my people brought you here for medical attention, in particular…."</p>
      <p>"I don't need no medical attention!" Shadow suddenly spat. He sounded like an edgy teen rebelling against their parents.</p>
      <p>"Indeed" The Fox said smiling, "but the other two are in shock and have minor bruises"</p>
      <p>The fox turned and wheeled himself out from behind his desk. For the first time, Amy realised that the fox was on a wheelchair. "I'm sorry, but your two friends had arrived seconds before you arrived, and I hadn't had the time to properly introduce myself. I am Professor Miles Tails Xavier. You are in my school for gifted children. Mutants, as the press calls us. The bat behind me is one of my assistants, Rouge. You will be safe here from Scourge, or as he calls himself, Magneto."</p>
      <p>The three hedgehogs all shook the foxes' hand, (Shadow somewhat reluctantly) while the bat stayed back as if afraid that touching them would kill them. Then Sonic said in a puzzled voice "What is a Magneto?"</p>
      <p>The professor chuckled "A very powerful mutant who believes that there is a war brewing between us and the rest of the world."</p>
      <p>"So?" Shadow asked "What has that got to do with me? Or these other two?"</p>
      <p>"I don't know yet" The professor admitted "I wish I did. But I believe that he is planning something. The mutant who attacked you is a new associate of his called Mephiles, going by the nickname of…"</p>
      <p>"Sabretooth" Shadow said completing his sentence. His voice dripping with venom. "Oh I know him alright."</p>
      <p>"You knew he was bout to attack us?" Amy said, trying to take in everything that she had seen and heard.</p>
      <p>The professor shook his head "No, I just tracked him, and he led my people to you. We need to keep the three of you out of Magneto's reach until we know what his interest his"</p>
      <p>Shadow laughed "No can-do bub! I have got to get back to my…"</p>
      <p>"Your camper was destroyed" The fox said calmly "Shadow, it has been almost 15 years hasn't it? Since you…woke up?"</p>
      <p>Shadow stared at the professor as if he was about to answer a question he wanted answers to for a very long time.</p>
      <p>"woke up." The professor said "with no knowledge of who you really are. Living day to day, trying to piece together what happened to you. You know how to fight, though. You always have known, haven't you? And your nightmares are vague clues to a past that isn't completely erased from your mind. But now that everything has been destroyed, where will you go?"</p>
      <p>"How…" Shadow said stunned.</p>
      <p>Then a voice rang in Amy, Sonic and Shadow's head <em>"Your not the only one with gifts"</em></p>
      <p>Then the two tails of the fox spun suddenly, slowly at first then rapidly and then the fox flew up, out of his chair and into the air where he hovered slightly, his legs hanging uselessly then came down back into the chair.</p>
      <p>Behind them the door opened, and two people came in. One was a red echidna with strange looking sunglasses and the other was a green echidna who Amy realised was the nurse who wore too much perfume.</p>
      <p>"Ah, thank you" The professor said aloud "Dr Grey, allow me to introduce Amy, Shadow and Sonic."</p>
      <p>The green echidna smiled at the three, "Yes, call me Tikal" she said offering her hand to shake. Shadow looked into her eyes as he took her hand. In all his life he had neve seen a woman so beautiful. Or to whom he had been so attracted to. He hands were soft, yet strong in his. And he didn't want to let go.</p>
      <p>Professor Xavier continued with the introduction "This is Knuckles Summers, also called Cyclops. Bunnie Munroe, also called Storm. They are the ones who saved your life"</p>
      <p>"Thank you" Sonic and Amy said in unison. The red echidna looked pleased, but immediately frowned at the lack of gratitude from Shadow.</p>
      <p>"Don't mention it" Cyclops mumbled at Shadow, looking at him as if every part of him had somehow offended him in some way, Tikal then put her arm around his arm, which was clearly the action of a girlfriend.</p>
      <p>"What happens to us?" Amy said suddenly. The professor, the bat and the echidnas all smiled at the hedgehogs with warmth and understanding. "I know that you two have been though a lot together, searching for a home. A place to belong."</p>
      <p>Amy and Sonic nodded in unison. They were beginning to like this place more and more.</p>
      <p>"And I will give you that"</p>
      <p>"So?" Shadow said, glancing at the others "Is this like a dog pound for unwanted mutants or what?"</p>
      <p>"You will be talk politely to the professor." Cyclops said in a tone that sounded as if he was a father telling off a disobedient child. "You will use full body listening and you will address him as 'Professor'."</p>
      <p>Shadow couldn't believe his ears, before he can fully process what the red echidna had said to him he punched him square in the jaw without even hesitating.</p>
      <p>Cyclopes almost fell to the floor, with one hand blocking his fall and the other to make sure his sunglasses were in place.</p>
      <p>'Vain dude' Shadow thought contemptuously. 'He thinks that he can boss someone around like that!'</p>
      <p>"Knuckles!" Tikal cried, she ran to her boyfriend, but he raised up a hand.</p>
      <p>Tikal turned to the hedgehogs "I know that you think none of this is your concern, but Magneto will find you. And a lot of lives can be in danger including your own"</p>
      <p>"And I will make you a deal Shadow." He said "You give me three days to find out what Magneto wants with you, and I will give you my word that, even if he is interested in you or not, I will use all of my power to find out what you have lost, and find what you are looking for. And I will give you an RV free of charge"</p>
      <p>Shadow paused for a moment, then he relaxed "Three days old man" He said "Cross me and I won't feel any guilt about what I do"</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Lessons</h2></a>
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        <strong>Washington DC</strong>
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      <p>Senator Kelly smiled and clapped his heavy hands together as the limousine pulled onto the tarmac of the airport. "Looks like we have some supporters."</p>
      <p>A brown wolf called Henry Guyrich, the Senator's aide, nodded, but he wasn't really looking at the supporters, or at Kelly. Kelly didn't really care what Guyrich thought, or what anyone thought, except for the pollsters. And right now, the polls showed that his antimutant stance was getting him a lot of attention and votes. And he was going to keep riding the issue until it no longer yielded those benefits, even if it happened overnight.</p>
      <p>The limo came to a halt beside a large government helicopter, the piolet already waiting in his seat. The path between the limo and the helicopter was lined by a deafening crowd, barely restrained by a short rope.</p>
      <p>Kelly immediately devided the crowd into two groups, those who are his supporters were cheering at him, while those who aren't are yelling insults at him, but he didn't care. He stepped out into the cold and waved and smiled at the camera.</p>
      <p>He strolled down the line, he shook a few hands, muttered a few sentences into the reporter's mics and gave the thumbs up, the crowd continued to cheer and jeer. Kelly acted as if those who were against him were invisible and focused on those who were on his side. He loved this attention. He could feel it fuelling him, giving him the extra strength needed to keep going.</p>
      <p>He finally reached the helicopter and after ensuring that all the cameras were pointed at him he gave one final thumbs up.</p>
      <p>Behind him, Guyrich, followed carrying the senator's briefcase. As he climbed aboard, he glanced at the pilot, who nodded in acknowledgement. Nobody noticed anything out of the ordinary. Not even Senator Kelly. But if a camera were to zoom into Guyrich's face, they would have caught his eyes had turned yellow.</p>
      <p>
        <strong>X – Men Mansion</strong>
      </p>
      <p>The bright winter sun flooded the large solarium, warming the air around the students, Storm and Rouge. Amy Jubilee Rose and Sonic sat near the back, a pile of books on the beside them, watching as Storm lectured, and Rouge stood by waiting for something to happen.</p>
      <p>This was all so new to them. They had never expected to be included in a class again after what happened and yet here, they were. With people that knew what they can do, and they didn't care. 'This is going to take a while for me and Sonic to get used to' Jubilee Rose thought.</p>
      <p>Sonic had been provided with shoes made by some Dr Ray Hank McCoy that can help him with his speed and traction and Sonic had been desperate to find an opportunity to test it out, however the professor said that they will test it out after Storms class and he had been jumpy for the class to end. While Amy had been provided with gloves that allowed her to control her 'firework hands'.</p>
      <p>Storm stood in front of them, the rabbot's skin almost radiant in the sunlight, her white hair flowing like a waterfall around her head, standing next to her was Rouge, who is the EA for this lesson. She, Storm and Dr. Grey were the most beautiful women that Amy and Sonic had ever seen, and they already decide that they wanted to be like them.</p>
      <p>But for Amy there was something about Shadow that made him a million times more 'appealing' than all the other staff members that she had met so far, she had no idea what it was though.</p>
      <p>"So, the barometric pressure begins to drop" Storm was saying, "Precipitation begins, and the air starts to move more rapidly. Now lightning strikes occur when strong thermal updrifts cause water droplets and ice crystals to collide, creating positively and negatively charged particles"</p>
      <p>A mouse student named Frederick who sat in front raised his hand,</p>
      <p>"Yes?" Rouge asked</p>
      <p>"Are you sure about this?" Fredrick asked, smiling.</p>
      <p>"Do not tempt me to demonstrate" The rabbot said shaking her head with a hint of amusement.</p>
      <p>Kitty, who was sitting in beside Amy, whispered "So that guy you came with? He's really got steel claws that come out of his hands?"</p>
      <p>Shade, an echidna was sitting on the other side of Amy whispered back "No way. What kind of mutation is that? That beats my power of being able to show people's worst fears."</p>
      <p>Amy just shrugged, as she continued to pay attention to the class, unsure on how to respond to this statement.</p>
      <p>Rouge noticed a young cat student called John pulling out a giant lighter. Rouge stared in confusion as he didn't seem to be taking out a cigarette or anything like that, instead he held his hand under the flame and pulled the lighter away, keeping the flame in place, hovering over his hand. John noticed Rouge and gave a small smile as the flame grew into the size of an orange. Rouge was about to intervine when there was a loud snapping sound like a small bomb, and the flame in Johns hand was replaced with what appeared to be a playing card. Looking up to the far end of the class she noticed the oldest student in the class, a green hawk called Jet, or as she called him, Gambit, holding his trademark playing cards. Rouge turned back to look at her teammate to see that she wasn't pleased.</p>
      <p>"John what did I tell you?" Bunnie asked frowning</p>
      <p>"Sorry." John said, looking like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.</p>
      <p>"and you Jet, you are X Men material, but I believe that you still need to learn when and where to use your power."</p>
      <p>Jet looked as if he wanted to fire a retort, held his tongue at the look at the teachers face then nodded.</p>
      <p>Bunnie shook her head then turned to finish what she was writing on the whiteboard.</p>
      <p>Later that day Sonic, Amy, Bunnie and Rouge sat in an empty classroom for their counselling.</p>
      <p>"So how has your time here been?" Bunnie asked the two hedgehogs.</p>
      <p>The two hedgehogs looked around in wonder, at the glass walled room and winter gardens beyond. It was Amy that spoke what was in their minds "This place is so beautiful. And everyone is so nice. I just…"</p>
      <p>She didn't know what to say, nor did Sonic. They both sat in silence speaking more with their facial expressions than with words.</p>
      <p>"How long have you two been on your own?" Rouge asked suddenly</p>
      <p>This question made the two hedgehogs suddenly gain interest in the floor patterns, and without saying a word Sonic replied "Eight months. We have been hitchhiking, trying to get far away from home as possible. Get away from anyone who would know what we were."</p>
      <p>The two older women nodded "We can understand that." Bunnie said "I myself ran off from my home in Kenya to Cairo and Rouge here had fled to the southern United States."</p>
      <p>"Sonic and I didn't know there was anyplace for us to go to" Amy said "But this is wonderful. We felt…kind of alone you know. We did have each other…but that really wasn't enough…"</p>
      <p>"Well." Bunnie said "You are not alone anymore"</p>
      <p>"And the professor? Can he…cure me?" Amy said under her breath.</p>
      <p>Rouge looked sadly at the hedgehog girl and looked to her teammate as if asking permission to talk.</p>
      <p>There over the next hour, Amy learned something she didn't want to know, but suspected. That she will have to be very careful about touching things without exploding them, that Sonic had to watch where he was going or else he will vaporize people. Rouge did most of the talking to them, as she had it worse as she would never be able to touch another person as long as they lived. Bunnie's comments on establishing a mutant community fell on deaf ears. All they knew was that they were a danger to themselves and everyone else around them and there was less then a handful of people that can understand that. Suddenly they felt more alone than they had on the road.</p>
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<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Kidnapped</h2></a>
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        <strong>X – Men Mansion</strong>
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      <p>Shadow was getting the official tour from Professor Miles Xavier himself. He wasn't sure why the fox who both looked very old and very young at the same time was spending time with him, but whatever the reason, Shadow figured that he shall be gone in a couple of hours, so it didn't matter in the slightest.</p>
      <p>Shadow walked slowly, pacing the professor's wheelchair as it moved silently along the floor. They were in a wing of the mansion that Shadow hadn't seen before. The place was massive. He had already been shown a huge solarium and more rooms than he could count. And everything was distinctively first class. Clearly there was some money behind all this.</p>
      <p>Of course, if the professor could read minds as it seemed he could there certainly wouldn't be a problem getting money.</p>
      <p>"The dining rooms, kitchen and parlour are found in the other wing" the professor said, "As you can see everything on this floor and above has been designed to be viewed by the general public. As far as they know, this is merely a school for 'gifted' students"</p>
      <p>The professor led Shadow to a panel in the wall and stopped. A hidden lift door opened with a <em>Ping </em>and they stepped inside.</p>
      <p>"So how did I get in here?" Shadow asked. "You didn't bring me in through the front door."</p>
      <p>The door of the lift opened revealing the lab corridor that he had been dragged through.</p>
      <p>"Come on," the professor said "I will show you"</p>
      <p>They moved down the corridor, turning twice before reaching wide silver doors that opened automatically onto a massive hangar. It was bigger than anything than Shadow would have imagined. More than likely it could hold an airliner or two. But at the moment, it seemed to be primarily dedicated to a modernistic, shiny black and silver jet like nothing that Shadow had ever seen.</p>
      <p>"Vertical takeoff and landings" The professor said, motioning toward the jet "Instruments that allow it to fly in any weather, and in theory can take you to the moon"</p>
      <p>"Amazing" Shadow said, moving out into the hangar and looking around curiously. He pointed to the large doors at the end. "Hidden entrance?"</p>
      <p>The professor nodded "perfectly hidden"</p>
      <p>"So why all this?" Shadow asked, motioning at the equipment and the jet.</p>
      <p>"Everyone here has abilities." Xavier said "Powers. Curses, until they can be controlled. All of us have hurt and been hurt. And none of us asked to be the way we are."</p>
      <p>"I heard you there" Shadow said</p>
      <p>"When I was eight years old." The professor said, "I began to hear people's thoughts. At first, I thought I was going mad. One day I read the mind of one of my teachers and saw that he was going to fail me simply because he didn't like me"</p>
      <p>"I bet that pissed you off" Shadow said</p>
      <p>"It did at that" The professor commented "I was so mad that I put a suggestion in his mind that he was having a heart attack. He nearly died"</p>
      <p>Shadow looked down at the two tailed fox with a little more respect. It hadn't dawned on him that reading someone's mind could have other uses. Dangerous uses, it seemed. "So what did you do?"</p>
      <p>"I was terrified," The professor said "As most everyone here was when something first happened to them. Just last week, a student was nearly killed by her father because she possessed the ability to turn into a wolf. She is in safe hands now. But it was then when I sought companionship in a young woman called Fiona…" The professor paused at this as if choosing his words very carefully. "She was like a sister to me. She can shapeshift and was hunted down by so many people. A couple of years after that I met Scourge Lehnsherr. Scourge, too, had a power. He can create magnetic fields, enabling him to manipulate metal. Eric, Fiona and I were in the same position and all three of us along with some help found others like us."</p>
      <p>"How long ago was that?" Shadow asked</p>
      <p>The fox smiled "A long time ago. 1962 to be more precise. But Scourge had a different view of the world than I did. He believed that humanity would never accept us, that a war between mutants and the rest of the world is inevitable. That was when he became Magneto, and he managed to sway Fiona to his side…I opened this school, a place where mutants could be safe from persecution. This is a place where they could not only learn to focus their powers, but also learn that mankind is not evil. Just uninformed."</p>
      <p>"You still had not answer my question" Shadow asked. "Why all this hardware?"</p>
      <p>The professor continued. "There are mutants out there with incredible power, Shadow. I knew that a day would come when some of them might use that power against the rest of humanity. And that if there was no one to challenge them, humanity's days would end."</p>
      <p>"So, you are the challenge" Shadow said, nodding.</p>
      <p>"Evil men succeed when Good men do nothing." The professor said. "A quote that Scourge told me many times."</p>
      <p>Shadow nodded again. This was a much, much bigger operation than he had first thought. It was going to be great to get out of here and let them fight all their good fights for as long as they wanted.</p>
      <p>"Now if you don't mind, if we want to find what it is that our friend wants with you we need to do a few tests. Please follow me" The fox said suddenly all business like, as he guided Shadow down a corridor.</p>
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        <strong>The East Coast – above Washington DC</strong>
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      <p>Senator Kelly hung up the phone and sat back in the soft chair of the helicopter, staring out of the window at the ground flashing past. The drone of the motors faded to background noise in the extraordinary luxurious interior. Kelly loved travelling like this. He considered it one of the God – given rights of his job. And he used his rights as often as he felt he needed, which was often.</p>
      <p>He stared at the phone. That call with the president had gone almost exactly as he expected. Sometimes things went well, sometimes they didn't and other times it was a mix.</p>
      <p>"Well," Guyrich said "What was his opinion?"</p>
      <p>Kelly shrugged and leaned forward to pour himself another glass of scotch. "He's the president of the United States. He doesn't have an opinion. He smiles, he waves, he shakes hands."</p>
      <p>"Isn't that what you do, sir?" Guyrich asked. Kelly shot his aide a sharp look across the table, then put the scotch bottle back between them. Guyrich had been acting strange lately. If he didn't shape up, Kelly would have to have a talk with him about his attitude. The last thing Kelly needed right now was a problem with his staff. However, Guyrich knew too much and the last thing he needed was an angry employee spilling out all of his secrets to the opposition party. That happened too many times throughout history and he was determined not to repeat it.</p>
      <p>"Well," Kelly said, leaning back and sipping, enjoying the smooth taste of the expensive scotch, "this time it's not up to him. It's up to me and Congress." "Have you thought about a demonstration of some kind?" Guyrich asked. "Maybe use the UN Summit to our advantage. The whole world will be watching."</p>
      <p>"I am only interested in Americans" Kelly said, his voice harsher than he intended. He caught himself. "Let the rest of the world deal with mutants in any damn way they please. I don't care if the British treat mutants like royalty or if the Canadians give them special privileges or if the North Koreans commit genocide or if China makes a mutant army. Besides, only Americans can vote for me."</p>
      <p>He laughed and took another sip, then decided to go on "This is the sort of problem that the left and the liberals beg you to ignore, rather than stamp them you embrace them, then it crawls up and bites them in the ass and its people like me who are left to clean it up. This situation, these mutants are the reason people like me exist"</p>
      <p>Kelly glanced out of the window as the helicopter crossed over the cold dirty waters of the Atlantic. Kelly blinked. They weren't supposed to be over water on this flight. A lake or two yes, but not the Atlantic.</p>
      <p>"Hey, where the hell are we?"</p>
      <p>Kelly glanced back at his aide, waiting for an answer. Instead he witnessed a horror story. Right before his eyes, Guyrich was changing. His face was shifting, his clothes seeming to draw inward, until finally, where Guyrich had been sitting, Kelly found a beautiful fox woman covered completely in iridescent blue and red scales. She had solid yellow eyes that made he look more like a cat than a human.</p>
      <p>She just smiled and said nothing.</p>
      <p>It took a moment for Senator Kelly to register what he had witnessed. Then he realized that he was facing a mutant. A mutant who had been posing as his aide.</p>
      <p>Instantly he jumped for the cockpit door, but the blue and red fox woman was faster. A lot faster. As he moved past her she plated a solid kick to his stomach.</p>
      <p>The air rushed out and he doubled over, sliding toward the door. As quick as he could the climbed back to his feet and yanked open the cockpit door.</p>
      <p>"Pilot! Help!"</p>
      <p>The pilot leered at him through grotesque features. A long tongue flickered briefly at him. The co-pilot seat was empty.</p>
      <p><em>It shouldn't be empty </em>he thought frantically <em>there are always two piolets on these flights</em></p>
      <p>Kelly turned back to the blue and red fox woman, who was standing behind him.</p>
      <p>She took a step toward him, and he swung at her. He wasn't going to let any damned mutant take him without a fight. It was as if he were moving in slow motion. She caught his hand and hit him five or six times with kicks and punches before he could even fall down. He coughed, trying to catch his breath as he lay face-down on the carpet-covered floor. Suddenly strong hands grabbed him and flipped him over on his back. The blue and red face and yellow eyes came right down over him like a nightmare that he couldn't seem to wake up from.</p>
      <p>"You know," the blue and red fox woman said, "people like you are the reason I was afraid to go to school as a child." She stood and kicked him solidly in his stomach, forcing what little was left of his breath out of him. He worked to breathe, choking and coughing as he stared up at her through water-filled eyes.</p>
      <p>She started to turn away, then, almost as an after thought, she raised a foot and brought it down solidly on his face.</p>
      <p>Merciful blackness took him almost instantly.</p>
      <p>It would be hours before he awoke and then he would be very sorry that he did.</p>
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<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Testing</h2></a>
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        <strong>X – Men Mansion</strong>
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      <p>Tikal leaned against the edge of the doorway of Shadow's room and watched, smiling as he took down one of the pictures on the walls and put them in drawers. The two of them had talked off and on, through his medical examination and then though the entire dinner. She had then offered to show him is room, which he accepted, rather reluctantly, however she didn't need to use her telepathy to tell that he would be lost in the mansion without someone guiding him.</p>
      <p>"So why do so many mutants end up coming though here?" Shadow asked as he slammed a drawer shut.</p>
      <p>"Most mutants lever pretty ugly situations behind them" Tikal said "People find out what you are, so a lot of mutants have to start out with a new identity. We not only help them with their control of their powers, we help them with the new identities and starting new lives, as well. Take those two runaways you found for example"</p>
      <p>"What about them?" Shadow asked in a monotone, but cold voice.</p>
      <p>"Well, the pink one, Amy" Tikal said, unsure on how to express her point "…can make fireworks come out of her hands, and even though this sounds ridiculous at first, she had burnt her house down when her powers first shown up. The blue one, Sonic has superspeed and he nearly killed a boy when he ran straight through his leg…"</p>
      <p>Shadow nodded, sorting through the clothes someone had put on his bed. They all looked as if they can fit, as if the person who chose them had a good eye for size, but half of them he wouldn't be caught dead in.</p>
      <p>"So" Shadow said unsure on how to respond to Tikal's statement "I heard that you can move stuff with your mind"</p>
      <p>"It is called telekinesis" she said</p>
      <p>"Right" Shadow said "You can move stuff with your mind. What else?"</p>
      <p>"I have some telepathic abilities" she said</p>
      <p>Shadow stared at her suspiciously "Like the professor?"</p>
      <p>Tikal shook her head "My telepathy is nowhere near as powerful as the Professor's he is one of the most powerful telepaths in the world. The only telepath that I know that comes even close to his level is woman called Zeena Frost, but that is not important."</p>
      <p>"So" Shadow said, looking around the plain room rather than at Tikal "Why are you just plain old Tikal Grey?"</p>
      <p>"I beg your pardon?"</p>
      <p>"You couldn't think of some cute nickname? Seems that just about everyone here has one. Cyclops, Professor X, Storm, Rouge, so do the students with Shadowcat, Wolfsbane, Colossus and so on."</p>
      <p>Tikal laughed "Honestly I haven't chosen one yet."</p>
      <p>"How about Mrs Cyclops after your boyfriend?" Shadow said matter-of-factly</p>
      <p>"No, I don't think so." Tikal said coldly "and to let you know, when the Professor found Knuckles he hadn't opened his eyes in weeks. Awake and asleep. Even with his visor it is very hard for him to control the energy that is coming out of his eyes. Without it if he opened his eyes, he could easily punch though a mountain as simply as you could crush a beer can. He has to be in control every minute of the day. This can make anybody tense after a while."</p>
      <p>Shadow stood there in silence unsure whether on not to say anything. Then he said, in an undertone "When you found me, or when you moved me to the Professor's office, did you see anything in my mind?"</p>
      <p>Tikal took a deep breath and let it out slowly. What she had seen had shocked her in some fashion or another. He waited until she gathered herself.</p>
      <p>Finally, she said "just images. And pain. Lots of pain. What happened to you?"</p>
      <p>"Bad things. Lots of bad things" Shadow said</p>
      <p>"Don't you think it is past your bed time Shadow?" The red echidna was leaning on the door frame as if he was watching an interesting movie, he visor glowed red as if he wanted to blow Shadow's head off. "Or do you want Tikal to tuck you in bed with a glass of warm milk, cookies and a bedtime story?"</p>
      <p>Shadow snorted "I bet she had got a few you haven't heard. Also, its the middle of the afternoon, so why would I need that? I am not a baby."</p>
      <p>The red echidna chuckled softly, Shadow looked at him with raw anger in his eyes</p>
      <p>Tikal signed and shot Cyclops a look of frustration "Let me know when you two start butting antlers. I'll get my camera"</p>
      <p>She turned and left, clearly flustered by what she had seen in Shadow's mind. And, Shadow guessed, because Cyclops had stuck his nose in where it didn't belong. Shadow stared at Cyclops and, despite the visor, it was plain he was staring back.</p>
      <p>"You gonna tell me to stay away form your girl or what?" Shadow asked, sneering at the red echidna "Or are you gonna give me detention because my shirt is not tucked in?"</p>
      <p>The red echidna gave a look that made it clear that he didn't want to talk about his girl friend but muttered under his breath "If I had to do that, she wouldn't be my girl"</p>
      <p>"So." The red echidna said as if attempting to make small talk with someone who clearly was the polar opposite to him in every way "Jubilee and Quicksonic…"</p>
      <p>"Who the £$%&amp; are they?" Shadow said in a tone of puzzlement and disgust</p>
      <p>"The two hedgehogs that you found" Cyclops said trying to pull himself together to not to yell at him for using bad language "They said that you were like an animal in that bar. And as an FYI, the blue one doesn't like his nickname, but I think its cute, he is still insisting on Sonic. Anyway, I think they, especially Jubiliee meant it as a compliment. She was very impressed they way that you fought, however I must make this clear, they way that you fight is not taught nor tolerated in here. Fighting humans is very different from taking on mutants. Especially Magneto"</p>
      <p>"You have fought him, have you?" Shadow asked</p>
      <p>"We haven't resorted to that, yet"</p>
      <p>Shadow sat in disbelief "So let me get this straight. You are preparing for a war and I am not convinced that you could handle yourself in a heated discussion. I am guessing I am the only one here who has seen any true combat"</p>
      <p>"and what is that?"</p>
      <p>Shadow just stared. He wasn't about to go over what little he remembered with this wet nosed kid "previously"</p>
      <p>"Don't like to talk about your past huh?"</p>
      <p>"Got it in one" Shadow said "especially to you"</p>
      <p>"It just must kill you that I saved your life" Cyclops said.</p>
      <p>Shadow only snorted. He actually hadn't given it much thought, but he wasn't going to bait the kid with that.</p>
      <p>"Don't worry. It won't happen again"</p>
      <p>Shadow only shrugged.</p>
      <p>Cyclops turned and headed for the door. Then he stopped and looked back "and Shadow." He said his face hard and very intense "Stay away from my girl"</p>
      <p>With that he moved down the hall leaving Shadow to sit on his bed and smile.</p>
      <p>Sonic was quite simply running for his life, or rather that was the instructions that the Professor had given to him. He was in the basement of the mansion and moments ago he had managed to explore the entire basement before the professor can leave the lift foyer.</p>
      <p>"Superb place!" He said ecstatically "I felt like I have gone 100 years into the future, and I have seen all the cool labs and all the cool tech! and…"</p>
      <p>"I know Sonic" Professor Miles Tails Xavier said. "I built this underground place over 30 years ago and there are things here to use for people with any mutant power. For instance in that room" He said pointing at a room down the corridor. "Is for the use of shapeshifter like that rabbit girl who can turn into a non Mobian wolf, or that room" he said wheeling his wheelchair down the long silver corridor "is for people with flight. I myself used to use that room"</p>
      <p>"You can fly?" Sonic said amazed, the professor chuckled "In my prime I can fly for miles and miles. It came in use several times. But now the best I can do it to get myself in and out of bed, and the toilet. Occasionally I can fly myself to reach a book I want in a bookshelf. But I no longer do that"</p>
      <p>"What happened?" The blue speedster asked</p>
      <p>"The last time I did that was over a mounth ago and I made the mistake of choosing to reading the complete collection of 'Devta' a book consisting of over 8,000 pages and 'The Complete Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus' a book over 13,000 pages long." The fox said</p>
      <p>"Oh…" Sonic said figuring out what had happened.</p>
      <p>"Anyway we are here at the speedster section" The Professor said pointing at a large silver door with the X door design.</p>
      <p>The door slid open and Sonic looked inside to see what they were doing here. Sonic had just been told that they were about to test his new powers and he was estactic. Amy had been told that her powers were a bit of a problem but is currently getting fixed by a friend of the professor by someone either called 'Ray', 'Beast' or 'Hank' whatever the name that Amy had overheard from snooping into the discussing by that Rouge teacher and that green hawk that calls himself 'Gambit'.</p>
      <p>Sonic's face upon seeing his own training room looked as it he was expecting more, but tried to make the best of it. The room was divided into two parts. The first part is what looked to be the mix of a lounge in an airport, with large sofa's a table that had all the food imaginable, a wide screen TV and in an alcove was a bookshelf that had every book on the planet. On the far side of the room was a giant desk fit for a god, that was full of computers, from computers that looked to be used in the second world war to computers that seemed to been stolen from the future and brought back into the present.</p>
      <p>In front of the desk was a 2 – way mirror which looked into a strange room that was a cross between a gym, a hospital, and a laboratory. There was a strange assortment of machinery all of which were hooked up to random gym equipment, but at the centre of the room was what looked to be a giant silver hamster wheel.</p>
      <p>"This was developed by a friend of mine, Dr Hank Ray MacCoy" The fox professor said "It can test how fast your speed is. I used to know another speedster, but he left us."</p>
      <p>"Did he die?" Sonic asked, unsure about how to respond to this</p>
      <p>"No."</p>
      <p>Sonic can tell that the two tailed fox didn't want to discuss the matter so he turned his attention onto the wheel. It wasn't ugly, nor was it beautiful, but it was just plain and simple. But there was something slightly off about it and Sonic had no idea what.</p>
      <p>"The motor in this wheel can make this wheel spin towards the speed of sound" The professor said "I also decided to hook it up to a generator so while you run you are also producing electricity. Anyway, would you like to begin?"</p>
      <p>"Of course!" Sonic said enthusiastically, he wanted to try the limits of his powers but he found it risky. Here though he knew that he can trust the professor, but he still went through the door to the testing room cautiously as if he was on a minefield. He stood on the wheel, gripping the large handle bar for support.</p>
      <p>'<em>Now I want you to start going at a casual pace' </em>A voice in Sonic's head said. Sonic nearly jumped out of his skin. He had taken a while to get used to the telepathy of the professor.</p>
      <p>Sonic obliged going at a casual walk. As he did so he noticed a few beeps from the computers around him and he noticed a large electrical sign displaying <em>'1 kmph'</em> and '<em>5 watts'</em>.</p>
      <p>'<em>good' </em>The voice in Sonic's head said <em>'now every time you hear a beep I want you to go a little bit faster, and if you think you need a break just think it and I will know. Okay?'</em></p>
      <p>'<em>Okay' </em>Sonic thought</p>
      <p>'<em>and if you want I can play some music or an audiobook or whatever to keep you entertained while you run.'</em></p>
      <p>'<em>That would be perfect' </em>Sonic thought smiling</p>
      <p>'<em>Good. Also, soon you will reach a stage where it appears that time seems to have slowed down. If that is the case do not be afraid. That happens to almost every speedster. If that happens press the blue button on your handlebar.'</em></p>
      <p>'<em>Errr…thanks' </em>Sonic thought</p>
      <p>'<em>No problem. Also the seeing things in slow – mo will stop after a while when you stop running'</em></p>
      <p>There was a soft <em>beep</em> sound and Sonic slightly increased his speed obliging with the professor. He was going to enjoy this.</p>
      <p>Amy Jubilee Rose sat under the tree in the school grounds observing the outdoor sports ground. The outdoor sports grounds included a small basketball court, a football/soccer field, a running track, and a swimming pool. The sports and history and art teacher who was also the school head boy, a giant armadillo called Mighty Rasputin who came from Russia. Amy knew very little about him, except for the fact that he was 'Hard on the outside but soft in the inside' according to her friend Kitty.</p>
      <p>Amy wasn't sure what to make about Mighty, but all she did know that if he was seeing what she was seeing he wouldn't be pleased at all.</p>
      <p>What appeared to be a duel was underway in the empty swimming pool. On one side was a green hawk called Jet, who goes by the nickname 'Gambit'.</p>
      <p>Amy had a hard time finding out everything that she could about him, but after talking to Rouge, who seemed to find every moment she could to talk to her she found out about him. Jet Etienne LeBeau came from New Orleans and was brought up by the thieves' guild. Jet had the ability to change an items potential energy into kinetic, which in simpletons' terms means that he can make anything he throws into a hand grenade. 'Which kinda explains why he carries around playing cards' Amy thought as he watched Jet throw a card at an unseen figure, where a soft <em>boof </em>can be heard. But after a series of events that was described to her as 'something that seems to have come straight out of a Shakespeare play' (Amy was desperate to find out what', Jet was unofficially banished from New Orleans. This was when the professor found him, and he joined the X men.</p>
      <p>On the other side of the pool was a cat called John Allerdyce, who was wearing what appeared to be wearing a flamethrower with many tubes cris crossing all over his costume.</p>
      <p>John was born in a shack with 4 siblings near Sidney, Australia and he couldn't have had the worst luck in the world. Before he was even out of his mother, his father was murdered, pushing John's mother into poverty and to fall into a 'bad crowd' where she remarried a man called 'Cool Brian' who provided the drug flow in the dark areas of western Australia and a member of anti – mutant cult known as the 'friends of humanity' who was under watch by over 30 nations around the world.</p>
      <p>John had 4 siblings but they are all dead. His older sister committed suicide, his older brother was mugged and died of his injuries, and John found out his mutant power the day the twins died.</p>
      <p>'Cool Brian' looked as if his parents were brother and sister (which they were) making him have a highly distorted posture. He seemed to have eaten all the food in an entire superstore giving him the appearance of a beach ball with legs, his right arm looked overlong and fragile as glass, and his left arm looked too short for a child, but looked as if it spent too much time in a gym. His legs looked as if they had been fractured, giving him a strong limp and worst of all was the face. 'Cool Brain' looked as if he had been in a fist fight everyday. His left eye is so swollen that it is practically blind, and in it's place was a giant wart. His skin looked both like if it had been incinerated and frozen in ice at the same time, he only had 4 rotten teeth left that would give a dentist a heart attack just by looking at it and his lip was so blown up that it is a mystery why a speak of dust hadn't popped it yet or why the cigarette that practically lived in his mouth hadn't made it blow up yet. Worst of all he had no nose and no ears whatsoever and in its place were stubby holes in it's place.</p>
      <p>It is impossible to find 'Cool Brian' without one of his 3 'poker buddies'. There was a woman called Charlotte, who was 'an angel on the outside but the devil in the inside' who seems to think that people are 'too old to date her' when they reach the age of 20 and had spent a lot of time with John and the twins. Then there was Damian who's form of greeting is to beat someone up to a pulp, friend or foe and seems to be wanting to drown himself in liquor. Finally, Alvin, who couldn't tell the difference between a glass of water and attempted murder.</p>
      <p>Amy had asked John about his life but after hearing the descriptions of each one of them Amy felt as if she had heard enough and tried to steer the subject to somewhere else.</p>
      <p>It was only through Sonic's findings that they found out how John moved from that hostile situation to the X Mansion.</p>
      <p>'Cool Brian' highly belived that the twins, who were only 12 at the time were mutants, and that meant that they must immediately be stripped naked and caged like a wild animal and put on display in the next meeting of the 'friends of humanity'.</p>
      <p>John was only 9 at the time and he remembered seeing everyone carrying flaming torches as if they had travelled back in time to the middle ages and were about to burn a witch at the stake. He saw the twins, Victor and William, he wanted to do something anything. He wanted to help them get out of there. He felt white hot anger as he saw 'Cool Brain' and his poker buddies present them like if they were hunters and they had just caught a giant animal. He felt enraged, so much anger and rage that he can feel it burning him up, he can feel nothing but fire, he was fire, he can see nothing but the blinding light of fire. He saw and heard all the cheers and jeers and all the insults in the swear book. By the time John wiped his eyes to get the image of the fire in his eyes out he heard screams, yells and then. Ashes. He was surrounded by nothing but bones, smoke, debris, ashes and a white hot cage with two corpses in it.</p>
      <p>Amy was quick to console John about his past, but John seemed to have recovered from his experience, but Amy wasn't convinced about that. But after shearing her experience about how her mutant gift emerged, John seemed to calm down, and gave her the nickname 'Jubiliee' Amy's middle name which stuck. John had told her that his planned nickname would be 'Pyro'.</p>
      <p>"Hey Jubiliee!" Pyro said seeming to notice the spying girl</p>
      <p>"What?" Amy asked.</p>
      <p>"I heard from Sonic that you can do some nifty tricks. Mind showing me and Jet here?"</p>
      <p>Amy paused for a bit and smiled like someone who was bad at poker.</p>
      <p>"alright!" She said and removed her gloves as if she was handling a nuclear bomb.</p>
      <p>For the months that Amy and Sonic were on the road, there came several spots of bother when they ran out of money and had to find a way to raise it. One of the ways was Amy preforming as a 'street magician' letting out several fireworks out of her hand. This got her a lot of attention and rose a considerable profit, until an incident on a boardwalk in a town near San Francisco had deterred that trick.</p>
      <p>Amy lifted up her hands and almost immediately several fireworks erupted out of thin air, the mini fireworks had completely surrounding her like a cheap ghost costume. The fireworks was a colour melting pot. Blue, yellow, red, pink, peach, black, gold, silver, what appears to be lilac, orange, green, purple and colours that didn't exist flashed and snapped all around her.</p>
      <p>"Nice light show." A calm voice behind Amy said.</p>
      <p>Amy nearly jumped out of her skin. Behind her was Rouge the bat looking both amused and slightly disapproved at the same time.</p>
      <p>"I am going to pretend that nothing had happened here, with you doing pyrotechnics' near the professor's favourite tree, and I see nobody in the pool." She said emphasising the last part eyeing the boys sheepishly getting out. "Jet if I so much as see you step a toe out of line again I am afraid I will have to tell the Prof, and John you could have got in hot water when I caught you and Bobby in the changing rooms all alone." She said in a serious tone, but her face showed the opposite. "Now please run along, and please behave yourself or else!"</p>
      <p>"or else what?" John retorted under his breath.</p>
      <p>"or else I will touch you for so long that you will be nothing but a shell!" Rouge said in a much more fierce tone, her face showing that she meant every word of it.</p>
      <p>That did it, before Amy had time to even blink the two had vanished as if from thin air.</p>
      <p>"Typical" Rouge muttered under her breath. "I would give anything to have another 'gift' than what I have"</p>
      <p>The professor looked on stone-faced at the wreak that used to be the speedster testing wheel. It was now reduced to a giant soldering wreak of nothing but smoke, debris and sparks. Nothing of it was left except for the computer that was connected to it that looked as if it had been struck by lightning and had a grenade thrown at it at the same time.</p>
      <p>Not to mention the entire room was covered in foam, and a thick cloud of CO2, which obviously came from the tiny pile of fire extinguishers.</p>
      <p>Sonic was standing in front of him looking extremely distraught and panicked. He was still holding a fire extinguished and talking so fast that the professor had little time to take in what he was saying</p>
      <p>"Iamsosososososososorryproffessor!Iwasrunningandthentherewasasparkandaflashandthenboom!Ididn'tknowwhattodoItriedtogouptoyoubutyouweremovingtooslowandIwasmovingtoofastsoIhadtodosomethingsoIgotafireextinquisherand…"</p>
      <p>The professor held up a hand for silence. "I am sorry. Can you please repeat that. You said that you were moving so fast that you saw me moving slowly?"</p>
      <p>"yes!" Sonic said then he blinked "wait a moment everything is moving back to normal now. What is going on?"</p>
      <p>The professor paused for a moment thinking about his answer then he looked up at the blue hedgehog and said "when you reach a certain speed you will start to see things going in slow motion, giving you enough time to react to things in your way."</p>
      <p>"Cool!" Sonic said doing a backflip for no reason whatsoever</p>
      <p>"Do be careful though" The professor said grimly "If you move too fast you could vaporize yourself."</p>
      <p>Sonic paused as if trying to figure out what to say. H had known that could happen to him but he tried to surpress the thought. This thought didn't escape the professor as he nodded at the blue speedster as if acknowledging what he was thinking.</p>
      <p>'<em>Which is why you must learn how to control your gift' </em>the professor thought sending this message to Sonic's mind.</p>
      <p>He glanced at a computer monitor "and I see that you generated almost a gigawatt of power! Very impressive."</p>
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        <strong>A few hours later </strong>
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            <p>Shadow for the first time in his life had no idea what to do. His extremely sensitive senses was quite simply bombarded with information. He stood in the large hall which is the canteen area of the school. The noise was quite simply deafening and had it not been for his healing factor he could have been made deaf by the loud noise. Shadow couldn't believe that so much noise can be generated by only a few hundred students, that for a moment he thought that if he blinded himself he can use the noise generated to see around the room.</p>
            <p>Shadow scanned the room as if expecting one of the students to withdraw some kind of weapon to attack him. Yet none came. All of the students themselves varied from age from toddlers to middle aged adults, species from aardvarks to zebras and most obvious of all what kind of mutant they were. Some could easily pass off as a normal person, others couldn't even go down to the corner shop without making the front page headlines by a reporter who couldn't tell the difference between a terrorist attack and an errand.</p>
            <p>The next thing to hit Shadow was the smell. The professor seemed to have made it his duty to make all the students feel included and had made what can simply be described as a super food court mixed with a buffet. He saw a stand with simple burgers and fries, yet he saw food stands for every country on the earth. From a giant bowl the size of an ocean filled with ramen to a lasagne the size of a ball room dance floor, all of these rich smells merged together to make what can only be described as liquid gold.</p>
            <p>It was only when someone brushed slightly near him is when Shadow realized that he was standing there for a while. Unsure what to do, he walked to the burger section grabbed a few buns and seized a bottle of pop. Shadow tried to look casual about it, but he felt like he looked completely out of place, however few people even noticed he arrived.</p>
            <p>'<em>I will be outta here in a few hours and I can forget all about this' </em>He thought to himself, as he tried to find somewhere to sit. After a while he found an empty booth tucked away near a booth with what appeared to be chili dogs.</p>
            <p>Shadow was just biting into his burger when he felt a soft whoosh of air and sitting in front of him was the blue speedster boy, Sonic.</p>
            <p>"So? How have you been doing" Sonic said in an overly cheerful voice.</p>
            <p>Shadow pretended as if he had gone deaf paying more attention to his burger than the boy in front of him.</p>
            <p>"I have just had a session with the professor, he told me that I can…" and he droned on and on and on about how he can potentially break the sound barrier, how he can generate gigawatts of energy. Sonic was about to talk about that he can see things in slow motion when Shadow finally spoke.</p>
            <p>"Listen here bub." He said his voice full of venom he finally looked up only to see that the hedgehog girl, Amy Jubilee had joined the blue speedster.</p>
            <p>Both of them looked at the black hedgehog though their large portion sizes. Sonic looked though his plate containing a mountain of chili dogs, while Amy had a bowl the size of a small bath tub filled with salad.</p>
            <p>"Can you please just learn when someone wants to be left alone? I thought that your experience in the bar would have wacked some sense into you, but no. It didn't so can you please just leave me alone? I just want the prof to know what this Magneto guy wants with me, and then I will be on my way while you stay here."</p>
            <p>"Left alone." Amy said softly under her breath "yeah I we get it, we had that experience too."</p>
            <p>Shadow's eyebrows raised slightly, he had expected them to not talk, he expected a rude retort, he hadn't expected this.</p>
            <p>"Ever since we became runaways all we had were each other and the clothes on our backs. We became mall rats, be were hitchhikers and we were homeless" Amy said as if unsure what to say, "Several times we wanted to be alone yes, but after sleeping in malls, benches and under bridges, after only eating fast food and soup kitchens, after run in with mobs and anti-mutant groups, we learnt that we are better off together."</p>
            <p>Sonic nodded in agreement then said "that's putting it lightly, but we don't have 5 hours to talk about all that" as if unsure how to respond to this poorly put together statement.</p>
            <p>Shadow only stated at his plate of food, 'true, being together may work out for them' he thought 'but not me. I prefer being on my own. They can join whatever this 'X – Men' thing is or not. I don't care. They can do whatever they want. But once the Prof finds out what this Mag – Whatshisname wants with me or not I shall be on my merry way and maybe I won't see either of these guys again unless if they find me or whatever'</p>
            <p>"I would be curious to know how you know that 'Methilubus' or 'Withertooth' guy? And how did you get that metal skeleton?" Sonic asked Shadow out of the blue.</p>
            <p>Shadow looked slightly stunned by this question, and Sonic knew that he had asked an offensive question and started rapidly stuttering apologies that fell of death ears.</p>
            <p>Sonic was just about to say his 20th sorry when Shadow spoke "Let's just say that we have a little tradition" he said gruffly.</p>
            <p>"What tradition?" Sonic said blurting out the first thing in his mind.</p>
            <p>Shadow seemed to be stinging his words very carefully. He knew that it was futile to get these kids off him, but he refused to reveal too much.</p>
            <p>"We fight a few times a year. Usually four times…Lets just say an eye for an eye a tooth for a tooth."</p>
            <p>"What do you mean?" Sonic said curiously "Did he like kill your girlfriend or something?"</p>
            <p>The instant Sonic said that he wish he hadn't. Shadow's face turned cold, but before Sonic can comprehend what he had just said, Amy elbowed him looking slightly cross. "Ow!" Sonic yelled out looking at Amy annoyed. "What did you do that for?"</p>
            <p>"For the 4th time this week you didn't think before you spoke Sonic! Remember that time in Oregon in the summer? When you got us in a fight in a sushi restaurant against an anti – mutant group and what appears to be the Yakuza because you couldn't hold your tongue! Or remember that time you got us thrown out of Las Vegas? You always speak without thinking! I don't know how many situations where I had to save you from people you have pissed offed or offended!"</p>
            <p>"I beg your pardon!" Sonic said as if he had been slapped in the face "What did you just say? I don't think before I speak. You are a hypocrite!"</p>
            <p>"What?" Amy fired back</p>
            <p>"Remind me, what happened when we were in New York? And what happened to you in San Francisco?"</p>
            <p>Amy looked as if she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar and that Sonic was her father scolding her.</p>
            <p>"I blew up parts of Lady Liberty." Amy said quietly and with extreme guilt</p>
            <p>"And?" Sonic said sounding like a judge delivering a sentence to a criminal</p>
            <p>"I got kidnapped in San Francisco because I was getting to much attention. And you had to rescue me" She said even more guilty. "I know, we had this talk before"</p>
            <p>Shadow watched on in quiet amusement watching these two bicker, it at least spared him of those thoughts of his past. That is what makes him unsuitable for this place, that fox professor is spending too much time worrying about the future if you ask him, and these two here are bickering about the past. He prefers to live for now. He gave a rare smile watching this as he sat up and left the couple arguing to each other.</p>
            <p>Rouge sat wrapped up in her favourite blue blanket sitting in her favourite chair in the library. The library is the 3rd largest room in the mansion, and the Professor made sure that books on every topic was in the library. There were books that was older than the country, books that looked as if they had just been printed, books the size of a car and books as small as a postage stamps. The library seemed to have an infinite number of skyscraper bookshelves with books raging from various topics, from the history of Aardvark Abby in Afghanistan to Zucchini cooking for Zulus. Rouge curled up in her chair reading one of her favourite books, this was how she likes to spend her time whenever she needs some peace and quiet.</p>
            <p>Unfortunately, peace and quiet makes her mind warp back to David, and how she nearly killed him. <em>'It's not your fault Rouge' </em>one voice in her head spoke softly. This voice sounded like the professor, calm and forgiving, and never angry. He had such an understanding voice. <em>'Don't blame yourself. This is who you are now. Rouge. The untouchable mutant' </em>then another voice in her head spoke. <em>'Do you know how dangerous you are?' </em>the other voice said. This one sounded harsh and rough like if they have been shouting all day and hadn't had the chance to drink water. It sounded oddly like Magneto, but 10 times creepier <em>'You are a ticking time bomb. You can't touch someone without risking them dying. How much longer can you keep this up? What if you touch one of the kids and they become nothing more than a shell? You might turn into them?'</em></p>
            <p>"Enough!" Rouge blurted out loudly and then slapped her mouth when she realised that she wasn't talking to anyone. <em>'Yeah. Right' </em>the rough voice said <em>'Lets set a timer until something bad happens, lets say three or so days, and by then someone would be dead because of you!'</em></p>
            <p>'<em>No.' </em>the calm voice said <em>'This is who you are now! Just accept it. You are not alone any more.'</em></p>
            <p>'<em>What?' </em>the angry voice said in confusion</p>
            <p>'<em>I want you to talk to that Jubilee girl. You know that you can sense something like you in there. You know what I mean. She can't touch anything without it blowing up' </em>the calm voice said</p>
            <p>'<em>And your point is?'</em></p>
            <p>'<em>That you can connect with someone that is like you haven't you heard a word I said?'</em></p>
            <p>'<em>Oh yeah!' </em>The angry voice said sarcastically <em>'She would be in greater risk of dying because of you! You are like Medusa! Cursed by Athena to never to look at someone in the eyes ever again!'</em></p>
            <p>'<em>I thought the myth went when Athena gave her that gift because she was constantly getting harassed! You know? Now people will leave her alone in peace.'</em></p>
            <p>'<em>Right' </em>the angry voice said</p>
            <p>"I don't need to be a telepath to tell that your mind is in complete chaos right now" a voice in front of Rouge said.</p>
            <p>Rouge nearly jumped right out of her skin. Standing in front of her was Jet fiddling with his trademark cards in one hand and holding a small pile of books like how a waiter in a fancy restaurant would hold a tray, one on New Orleans and the other on the history of the statue of liberty on the other.</p>
            <p>"Jet!" Rouge cried out "What do you want?"</p>
            <p>"Oh, nothing in particular." Jet said "I am letting you know that you are speaking out loud"</p>
            <p>Rouge looked around the large library and she realised that everybody in the library was looking at her. Rouge buried herself in her book in embarrassment unsure on how to respond, for a second she was her confused 17 year old self, then without really thinking about it she put down her book and smiled. "So what?" She said grinning like if she was on laughing gas "They can't tell me what to do. I am not bothering them am I sugah? So let it be! I can do whatever I want to do."</p>
            <p>A small part of Rouge told her that this sounded awful out loud, but she didn't care. She didn't care at all.</p>
            <p>The den was typically empty at 9:00 PM, by that time almost all of the students were in their rooms going to bed. The den was one of the hang out areas for the students. A large drinks and snacks dispenser was almost always full no matter how many people bought how many drinks and snacks. A giant wide window opened up giving views of the court yard, and if one were to sit by the windowsill they would observe a world class sunrise, paintings of the said sunrise done by a Russian student called Big Rasputin also known as Colossus decorated the walls. A large row of arcade machines glowed faintly in the dark light, a giant plasma TV sat on one side of the room with several sofas surrounding it and a small table for board games sat in the middle of the room.</p>
            <p>Rouge, Amy, Sonic and Jet sat at the games playing a card game that they have played several times with cheerful homeless people on trains to intimidating minor mafia bosses in malls.</p>
            <p>"We have a lots of games here, but I feel like we are better of simply playing cards" Rouge said shuffling the deck, then eyeing the green hawk noted "And please don't have any funny ideas please Jet."</p>
            <p>"What do you mean, madame Rouge?" Jet said in a mix between a mocking or confused tone "I mean we have a mountain of cards so…"</p>
            <p>"I mean that you could hurt someone with your 'gift' like how I would by touching someone!" Rouge responded sharply "I mean remember when we've played Slap the Jack? Colossus, Knuks and the Prof could have ripped your neck off when you destroyed half of ze Den!"</p>
            <p>"What can you do?" Sonic asked curiously.</p>
            <p>Jet gave a slight smirk then walked to open one of the windows that led out to virtually nothing and took several steps back as if expecting a nuclear missile to come flying out of the window "Watch this!" he said pulling out a card out of thin air, he held it back as if he was about to throw it, and for a second the card glowed dangerously gold, then Jet threw it out of the window. For a moment nothing happened, then there was a soft flash and a bang like the force of a small bomb.</p>
            <p>Sonic and Amy looked at this in confusion, unable to comprehend what they have just witnessed. As if reading their minds Jet responded "I can manipulate, generate and control pure kinetic energy"</p>
            <p>"Really?" Amy said finally understanding what she had witnessed "that's sounds so cool!"</p>
            <p>"How did you find out about this power?" Sonic said</p>
            <p>Jet made a small face as if unsure how to answer him "I blew up a casino" he said vaguely.</p>
            <p>Amy looked at Sonic with a face that read <em>'I will tell you later'</em></p>
            <p>Sonic paused for a moment. After an incident in New Mexico, Sonic and Amy produced a hand signal language to communicate with each other when around some people they don't want to hear their conversation,</p>
            <p>Sonic made some quick hand gestures to respond to her expression <em>'How did you find out?'</em></p>
            <p>'<em>found his diary' </em>Amy responded</p>
            <p>'<em>what!? You of all people?'</em></p>
            <p>"So?" Rouge said not noticing the hedgehog's hand signals "Shall we continue our game, shall we?"</p>
            <p>Half an hour later Jet had steamrolled all three of the cardplayers and emerged victorious. However, he rewarded his new friends by offering them snacks and drinks.</p>
            <p>"So Sonic." Jet said pouring him some soda "I hear that you are a speedster."</p>
            <p>Sonic nodded "That is correct." He said</p>
            <p>Jet paused and smiled sniffing the soda as if it was a fine wine "That must be a fun gift to have. I doubt that I can handle something like you with my gift if you know what I mean"</p>
            <p>"Do you mean that you can make me go faster, stop me or make me explode?" Sonic said "Whatever it is please don't do the last one, I would prefer to be alive and you would get blood everywhere"</p>
            <p>Jet chuckled "No, no, no! I mean make you stop or potentially make you go faster. However, I am better off with things that I can control like my cards"</p>
            <p>"I see." Sonic said "So whatever you throw they explode?"</p>
            <p>Jet seemed to pause for a moment then replied "Yes that is the general idea"</p>
            <p>"Then you will love Amy" He said pointing at the half asleep hedgehog girl "Whatever she touches can explode half of the time."</p>
            <p>"Is that a fact?" Jet said "and what can you do? Vaporise things that you run through?"</p>
            <p>Sonic looked wide eyed at Jet as if he had reminded him of his worst memory. Jet seemed to have realised that he must have said something bad and made an excuse and disappeared before Sonic can string a word together.</p>
            <p>Rouge looked at Amy's half-asleep state like how one would look at a mildly interesting painting. 'Should I wake her up' Rouge thought but before she can find something to nudge Amy with, she woke up with a start as if waking up from a nightmare.</p>
            <p>"How long have I been asleep?" Amy asked in an ambiguous tone</p>
            <p>"10 minutes" Rouge said</p>
            <p>"Oh." Then she looked around her as if expecting to see a fire around her "90 nights without incident" Amy said out loud.</p>
            <p>"What do you mean?" Rouge asked</p>
            <p>Amy sighed "I have the ability to make fireworks out of my hands, and well lets just say that sometimes in my sleep my subconscious, I let them out….and…they…they never end well."</p>
            <p>Rouge's eyebrows raised in interest "Why what happened last time?"</p>
            <p>"No!" Amy cried "No I don't think you'll get it"</p>
            <p>"Amy." Rouge said in a voice that sounded like the Professor "You are talking to someone who can kill someone by touching them so don't play the 'You will never understand me' gist"</p>
            <p>Amy's expression changed slightly "One time I burnt half of someone's face off. However, he kind of deserves it as he was attempting to mug me"</p>
            <p>Rouge made an unreadable expression in response to this, and only replied "Someone tried to kidnap me, but they only harmed themselves. Kinda got what was coming for them"</p>
            <p>"I see." Amy said "I didn't know what to do before I came here. All I had before now was Sonic. He only gets half of what it is like. If you know what I mean"</p>
            <p>"No, I don't" Rouge said "Enlighten me if you will"</p>
            <p>"Sonic can vaporise people and things if he runs straight through them at a certain speed. He tries to minimise doing that, however there were a few incidents that I am sort of grateful for. Like the time where we had an incident in a skyscraper in San Francisco, and he also knows how to catch bullets when they have been fired and there had been multiple occasions where that skill got us out of tight corners, but he still needs work on that if I were to be frank. There were also occasions where I had to save him, from an incident we had in Seattle and the time we got in a fight in a sushi bar in Oregon with gangsters and the time where he nearly got us killed in Vegas"</p>
            <p>Rouge nodded slightly "As I understand you also had an encounter with that guy, Shadow."</p>
            <p>"Yeah." Amy said "I don't know how to describe him. But, well, he is like a father I never had. For use of a better word"</p>
            <p>Rouge paused. She didn't know what to make of their new guest. But all she can sense was that something was wrong. Something was very wrong indeed.</p>
            <p>Tikal Grey stood in the laboratory in front of the light board, staring at the X rays posted there. To one side sat Professor Xavier, and behind him stood the red echidna and Bunnie. All were dressed in comfortable clothes, as if they were about to go to bed and were about to change into their pyjamas. Tikal had done a few X rays on Shadow, and after examining them had called for the others immediately.</p>
            <p>The X rays on the light board showed various angles of Shadow's skeleton, from the skull down to his fingers and toes. It looked more like a creation of a Deco architect than something natural, that was for sure. Much of the skeleton was streamlined, refined in many strange ways as if manufactured in a factory.</p>
            <p>And the claws running from the back of his arms down to his knuckles looked downright menacing. The design was brilliant, allowing them to work based purely on muscle control. How he can bend his arms and wrists is anyone's guess, but ingenious all the same.</p>
            <p>Even after an hour of studying the X rays, Tikal still can't believe what she was looking at. When the others arrived, she started by pointing out the bones, bright silver on the X ray, the looked at the Professor.</p>
            <p>"The metal is an alloy called adamantium"</p>
            <p>"You're joking" Knuckles cried</p>
            <p>"I didn't think that this was possible" The Professor said, staring at the X rays his features as calm as always.</p>
            <p>"Nor did I" Tikal said "Until today. Adamantium is supposed to be impenetrable, unbreakable and indestructible." She pointed at the X rays "All of that is adamantium"</p>
            <p>"But how in the world did anyone even work it into shape?" The weather controlling rabbot asked</p>
            <p>"It has been surgically grafted to his entire skeleton. Even around his joints and over his skull. I am even willing to bet that it is the same for the bones in his ear."</p>
            <p>"Impressive" Knuckles said</p>
            <p>"How could he have survived such a procedure like that?" Bunnie asked.</p>
            <p>"His mutation" Tikal said, glancing at the professor as if she was answering a question in class "Shadow has uncharted regenerative capability, which enables him to heal rapidly. This also makes his age impossible to determine. For all we know, he could very well be much older than you Professor."</p>
            <p>The 2 tailed fox laughed.</p>
            <p>"Any idea on who had done this and why?" Knuckles asked</p>
            <p>"He doesn't know" The Professor said quickly scanning Tikal's mind "Nor does he remember much of anything in his life before the operation happened. But he remembers the pain." The Professor sighed "This is something I dread. Experimentation on Mutants. We have all seen cases like this, but this takes the cake"</p>
            <p>There was a long pause as the X men thought about what they have seen and heard.</p>
            <p>It was Knuckles that broke the silence "So?" He said, "What do you think Magneto wants with him?"</p>
            <p>The professor pointed at the X rays on the wall "I am not sure it is <em>him </em>that Magneto wants."</p>
            <p>"The Adamantium?" Tikal asked</p>
            <p>"That or it could be one of the other hedgehogs" The Professor said.</p>
            <p>Tikal didn't answer</p>
            <p>Nor did anybody else</p>
            <p>The Professor knew that. Whatever Magneto was planning he didn't like it. He didn't like it at all.</p>
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<a name="section0010"><h2>10. The Machine</h2></a>
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      <p>
        <strong>X – Men Mansion</strong>
      </p>
      <p>Tikal slowly, and as quietly as she could, went about her normal bedtime routine. As always, this late at night, the mansion around her was quiet.</p>
      <p>Knuckles was already in bed, lying on his back as he always did with a special blindfold secured to the back of his head so that it wouldn't accidentally come off in his sleep.</p>
      <p>She couldn't tell if he was sleeping or not, so she simply slipped into bed next to him and turned off the light. It had been a very strange day. Much as changed. Ans she was still unsettled with her glimpse into Shadow's mind, and worried about Knuckle's behaviour to him.</p>
      <p>In the dark, Knuckles' blindfold was glowing softly. It dimmed slightly once when he blinked. He was awake.</p>
      <p>"What is wrong?" She asked.</p>
      <p>"I don't trust him" Knuckles said</p>
      <p>"Shadow? Why?" She asked stunned by his blunt reply. She was used to his orderly personality, but this is something else.</p>
      <p>"He has no respect, he shows no sign of gratefulness for us saving his ass there in Canada, he is rude, and the way that he looks at you makes me feel like he is trying to kidnap you."</p>
      <p>Tikal smiled and curled up against him, putting her head on his chest "You know that I love you Knucks" She said "And you should trust me"</p>
      <p>She kissed him, and after that, there wasn't much to be said.</p>
      <p>
        <strong>Magneto's Headquarters</strong>
      </p>
      <p>Senator Kelly slowly came to, the pain in his head a pounding drum, throbbing with each beat of his heart and his feathers ruffled as if it had been through a storm. At first, he couldn't remember what had happened. Nothing around him, from the trees to the clearing floor and rock cliffs looked familiar.</p>
      <p>When he tried to touch his head, he discovered that his hands were tied behind his back. He was bound to a cold, silver metal chair.</p>
      <p>He looked sown slowly, so as not to increase his headache, trying to focus his eyes. He can tell that he was still dressed in his suit and tie. Maybe he was robbed? No, he can still feel his thick wallet in his back pocket.</p>
      <p>Slowly but surely, the memory came back like a bad dream drifting in over the pain: Guyrich turning into a blue and red mutant. The blue and red woman had beat him, kicked him in the head.</p>
      <p>The memory sent a sharp stab shooting through his skull. Had it really happened?</p>
      <p>His vision slowly cleared a little more, so that he could focus over the throbbing headache. He let himself move his pounding head slowly, looking for anything around him that just might seem familiar.</p>
      <p>Most of the space around him was shaded in darkness. It was a clearing of some sorts, inside a covered place. There were tress and rocks and massive stone walls with arching metal entrances. The sound of running water was a continuous background noise. The air was warm and moist with hardly any breeze. He can smell a faint aroma of fine and ocean salt.</p>
      <p>He had never seen anyplace like this before. Fantastic architecture blended right in with the forests and rocks as if the two belonged together with neither appearing to be dominant over the other.</p>
      <p>Then Kelly saw the large frog standing on one side of the clearing, just in the shadows, staring up into a tree. A bird was chirping there, jumping from limb to limb. The large frog watched intently until something shot out of his mouth and grabbed the bird, pulling it right out of the tree.</p>
      <p>Kelly stared, not believing what he had just witnessed. It was the frog's tongue. One very long tongue.</p>
      <p>The bird struggled but couldn't get loose. The frogs mouth opened extra wide, as if his jaws had come unhinged and he took in the entire bird. Then, with his eyes closed as if savouring a special treat, the man chewed up the bird, eating it alive, bones and all. Senator Kelly could hear smacking and crackling sounds from where he sat.</p>
      <p>He wanted to be sick. He turned away as much as he could, closed his eyes, working to keep his empty stomach from pushing up through his throat. Never in all of his life had he seen such a perverted act.</p>
      <p>He struggled with his bindings, fighting to get loose. He had to get out of here, wherever here was.</p>
      <p>Slowly another figure, a green hedgehog – a powerful – looking, stately man, with giant scars on his chest – emerged from one of the tube-like entrances in the cliff wall and moved into the light. He smiled at Kelly.</p>
      <p>"Who are you?" The senator demanded "Where is my aide? Why have you taken me?"</p>
      <p>"My name is Scourge, Senator Kelly" the man said, his voice rich and deep and in control, with just a hint of a European accent "But please, call me Magneto. Your aide, Mr Guyrich has been in a bit of an 'accident' in an elevator. But I had Mystique here, or Fiona to keep you company"</p>
      <p>The red and blue fox woman stepped out of the shadows and wrapped her arms around him, as a lover would, claiming territory.</p>
      <p>Kelly pushed back, wanting to get as far away from her as he could. But his bonds wouldn't allow him to move at all, and the chair was far, fat too heavy to push. So instead he decided to confront this Magneto.</p>
      <p>"You know, don't you" Kelly said "That whatever you do to me will just prove me right? Every word that I have spoken will be confirmed"</p>
      <p>Magneto laughed. Letting Mystique lip off and step back "Gosh I do hope so"</p>
      <p>That wasn't the answer that Kelly had expected. He watched as the hedgehog stepped closer. He didn't look dangerous. Not like the blue and red fox woman. In fact he looked like anybody's grandfather or cheerful uncle who gives far too much money and has so many stories that may or may not be true. And with a name like Magneto he had to be a Mutant.</p>
      <p>"Are you a God – fearing man, Senator?"</p>
      <p>Kelly pushed back, trying everything he could to get away from the man who just kept getting closer and closer.</p>
      <p>Magneto laughed "Seems that you are certainly afraid of something at the moment. But God – fearing man? Such a strange phrase don't you think? The other way around is understandable yes."</p>
      <p>Kelly said nothing, trying to catch his breath as Magneto went on. The throbbing in his head increased.</p>
      <p>"I have always thought God as a teacher. As a bringer of light, wisdom and understanding"</p>
      <p>To his own surprise, Kelly found it was everything he could do to keep from screaming. The man had moved even closer and was almost leaning down in front of him. In the background, the man who are the bird and the blue and red woman stood as still as a statue clearly enjoying what they were seeing. They looked one step closer to getting a bag of popcorn.</p>
      <p>"You see" Magneto said, coming right up into Kelly's face "I think what you are really afraid of is me. Me and my kind. The Brotherhood of Mutants"</p>
      <p>Kelly's head felt as if it were going to explode. His entire body was shaking with fear.</p>
      <p>Magneto smiled, looking at Kelly right in the eyes for the longest time. Then, without blinking, he stood, turned and walked away. Suddenly Kelly's chair moved, clearly being dragged along the ground behind Magneto by some unseen force.</p>
      <p>"Oh fearing Mutants is not surprising really" Magneto said as he walked talking as if he and Kelly were just engaging in a normal conversation while they strolled in a forest. Only Kelly wasn't walking.</p>
      <p>"As a friend of mine had told me" Magneto said "People always fear what they don't understand. True?"</p>
      <p>Magneto looked at Kelly like how a teacher would look at a misbehaving student, but Kelly refused to give him the pleasure of an answer. So Magneto went on, talking and walking, with Kelly's chair bumping along the ground behind him.</p>
      <p>"And mankind has always made laws to protect itself from what it doesn't understand. Laws like your mutant registration law"</p>
      <p>"The intention of the Mutant Registration Act…" Kelly corrected</p>
      <p>Magneto stopped and turned on Kelly, cutting him off midsentence. Kelly's chair seemed to have slammed to a stop.</p>
      <p>"Intention?" Magneto said, he said this calmly but his eyes flared up "Senator, you and I both know all about the road to hell and what it is paved with.</p>
      <p>Kelly said nothing to this. His face gave nothing away.</p>
      <p>"We are not talking about intentions, Senator. We are talking about mankind. Human Fear. And trust me when I tell you, it is only a matter of time before Mutants and those who dare to help them will be headed into camps and then whiped out of the face of the Earth! I know because I have seen it in action! Did you know that JFK was a mutant? He was executed because of that! I could have saved him but atlas I failed."</p>
      <p>Magneto pointed at the faint blue numbers tattoed on his arm. Nazi prison camp tattoos. Despite everything Kelly felt shocked, awkward and sorry for Magneto.</p>
      <p>Magneto shrugged and turned as if he had just said too much "Well, I'm much more giving than that. I simply want to show you, to help you understand."</p>
      <p>Magneto waved his hand, and the entire area lit up. It became clear that Kelly was in a forest clearing, with towering cliff walls all around. Something stretched overhead, from cliff wall to cliff wall, enclosing the clearing, but Kelly couldn't see what it is.</p>
      <p>Stonework ad metal structures blended into the cliff walls, almost as if they had been formed there. Tunnel openings disappeared into the cliffs in a number of different places. Every line was flowing, yet everything seemed stark and oversized.</p>
      <p>The centre of the clearing drew Kelly's attention.</p>
      <p>A machine?</p>
      <p>A sculpture?</p>
      <p>Kelly wasn't sure. The gold metal seemed to flow upward from a round base supporting three pillars that held up a platform forty feet in the air. On the platform sat two curved, almost tusk – shaped metal spires, arcing into the air five meters above, pointing at each other but not quite touching. It all appeared to be made of metal and it seemed to shine gold and silver under it's own power. It was the most fantastic thing, sculpture or machine that Kelly had ever seen and for a moment he thought that he was in an auction bidding for an overpriced piece of modern art.</p>
      <p>Next to the sculpture was a small stack of what appeared to be generators, which almost spoiled the view of the sculpture grandeur.</p>
      <p>Magneto walked towards it, still talking. "Don't fear God, Senator. And certainly, don't fear me" Magneto laughed. Then he added "At least not anymore"</p>
      <p>"What do you intend to do to me?" Kelly shouted at Magneto's back</p>
      <p>"Lets just say that God works too slowly" Magneto said as he stepped up onto the base of the sculpture.</p>
      <p>Suddenly, Kelly realised that his first impression had been right. It wasn't a sculpture but instead some incredible machine.</p>
      <p>The Green Hedgehog stood facing Kelly, his feet apart. He placed his hands on two upright posts.</p>
      <p>Magneto jerked as his hands seemed to be yanked solidly against the posts; then he was whisked up the centre to the top of the machine, where he was locked into place under the two curving metal shapes.</p>
      <p>The generators stared up, making a loud dreadful sound as it boosted power to this incredible machine, however to Kelly he heard nothing as his own heart beating downed the sound out. A set of metal rings rose up around Magneto spinning slowly at first, then faster and faster.</p>
      <p>The air around Kelly seemed to be charged with energy; the light seemed brighter, as a slight wind started to blow, swirling around Kelly.</p>
      <p>Everything gained in intensity as the rings moved faster and faster, forming a blur around the mutant. The air started to ripple off the machine, like waves on clear water. Kelly wanted to look away but he found that he couldn't. Energy seemed to pour from Magneto's hands, through the post and into the rings swirling around him.</p>
      <p>The rings were now moving so fast that it wasn't even a blur, but instead formed a ball. The air around the machine was rippling away harder and harder. The green hedgehog's eyes were closed, he was straining with all his might to do the thing that he was doing.</p>
      <p>Then the rings began to glow. Dull red at first, then brighter and brighter, until they became almost a silver ball around the green hedgehog. Kelly wanted to shade his eyes, but his hands were tied. He turned his head, the headache growing again from the intense light.</p>
      <p>The green hedgehog was barely visible behind the light. Nonetheless, the strain was very evident on his face. Where before it had been silent, now a whine came from the machine. It started to glow. The light coming off the rings vanished. Yet Kelly could still see the faint outline of the ball that showed the incredibly fast rings.</p>
      <p>Louder and louder the whine cut through the vast chamber getting louder then the generators, the ground under Kelly's chair was shaking. Then suddenly, everything just seemed to stop.</p>
      <p>Kelly was afraid to even take a breath.</p>
      <p>Then the entire top of the machine, Magneto and all, appeared to have vanished leaving in it's place a light that seemed to ooze rather than radiate, a light that filled everything around it, expanding outwards.</p>
      <p>Liquid light, creeping and unstoppable.</p>
      <p>There was nothing like it in all of Kelly's experience.</p>
      <p>And it was coming right at him.</p>
      <p>He tried to shove back as the white light reached him, then washed up and over him, crawling into his eyes, his mouth, his ears and flooding his mind.</p>
      <p>He tried to scream, but the light muffled everything, filling his every pore, touching his every nerve with hot tips of agony combined with ecstasy. His senses ran though the range of everything that he had ever experienced.</p>
      <p>First every scent he had ever smelled, from baking bread to an overused latrine. From a woman's perfume to the smell of fear when someone faced him in the Senate.</p>
      <p>Then images stared to flash through his mind, faster and faster like a movie on fast forwared. He was able to see everything that he had done in his life, and then things others had done around him. He remembered things he thought he had forgotten to things that he can remember in precise detail. He saw everything that he had done in his life and then thins others had done around him.</p>
      <p>He saw it all.</p>
      <p>Understood it all.</p>
      <p>The he heard over again what he had said. Everything, clear and distant all at once. And then what people had said around him and about him.</p>
      <p>He took it all in.</p>
      <p>The touch of old girlfriends of soft pillows and of burning plates.</p>
      <p>He could feel every detail one moment then nothing the next.</p>
      <p>Then far quicker than it had started it was over.</p>
      <p>The light seemed to crawl back out of every atom in the air then vanish.</p>
      <p>Inside the machine, Scourge slumped, he looked clearly exhauseted by what he had done. He looked as if he had aged an extra million years. Mystique ran to him and supported him as he came down and slowly walked towards Kelly.</p>
      <p>There was a loud bang as the generators gave out over worked by what they have been through.</p>
      <p>Kelly looked down at himself. His entire body seemed to be glowing under his clothes. His skin was glistening, almost luminescent.</p>
      <p>"Oh, Oh, God!" he cried "What have you done to me?"</p>
      <p>He wanted to push back the memory of all the sensations, all the understanding, but they wouldn't ne ignored. He knew the last few minutes can never be ignored.</p>
      <p>Magneto stumbled over to a place in front of Kelly and weakly smiled.</p>
      <p>"Welcome to the future, brother"</p>
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<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Nightfall</h2></a>
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      <p>
        <strong>X – Men Mansion</strong>
      </p>
      <p>Amy Jubilee Rose laid down on her bed unable to sleep. She felt quite elated in this place, this school, and yet at the same time she wasn't sure what that meant. Should she join the X – Men? Or integrate into society? She had picked up some odd job or two however they were short lived mainly due to the fact that it almost always ended with her getting fired literally and figuratively. She remembered that brief stint as a newspaper delivery person in Arizona to gain a few extra dollars, Sonic had the time of his life doing it, which raised some suspicion around the town, but the last straw came when Amy attempted to throw the newspaper at a front door of some rich guys house, resulted in creating a large fire cracker explosion. That was a sign to Amy and Sonic to run away from the town at once. Sonic had joked saying "We go and stay at a place; our mutant powers does something stupid; we runaway from it to go to another place; repeat"</p>
      <p>Now, Amy knew that this is the place where she belonged, the place she had to be. The place where she belonged. A place where she can be accepted. She looked down at her hands. How much destruction had they done? Fireworks are pretty yes, however she can still remember burning off that pigs hand, and yes even though he was a major creep, that punishment was too harsh for her. Or that time when a simple homeless thief thought she had a ring and tried to steal it from her in her sleep? Now half of his face is burnt off. Or that time she nearly blew up lady liberty?</p>
      <p>Amy tried to supress her wild thoughts. 'No.' She thought to herself 'Your safe here. People here know what its like. Rouge. Shadow. Sonic. Knuckles. Bunnie. The Prof. They all know what its like'.</p>
      <p>She looked at her passed out roommate sleeping in the bed next to her. Her dorm room was simply furnished with two desks, a simple bookshelf, a closet that looks cheap and antique at the same time, a small bedside table with a tiny lamp and two beds that were neither hard as a rock nor a bed found in a 5-star hotel.</p>
      <p>Amy stared at her roommate, Cream Sinclair, who had already installed her decorations on the walls. There was a large painting that looks like if it was stolen from a corridor in a small airport which shows a large assortment of (non – Mobian) animals, a photograph showing Cream's friends in the school and various other posters showing (non – Mobian) animals. Meanwhile, Amy's walls had yet to be decorated.</p>
      <p>She thought about her meeting with her roommate.</p>
      <p>
        <em>A few hours ago:</em>
      </p>
      <p>"Erm hi…" Amy said, she just had dinner and she had found her way to her dormitory. She wanted to dorm with Sonic, however Knuckles said that it went against the student policy and insisted that she dorm with another girl, while Sonic dorm with another boy. Sonic was reluctant at first, but he accepted when Knuckles gave him the closest thing to a death glare that one who couldn't reveal their eyes can give. Sonic mumbled a dictionary worth of foul words when heading to their dorms. Sonic got a room with that 'Gambit' guy, while she got this rabbit that she saw once or twice in the classroom.</p>
      <p>She saw the rabbit reading a book on her bed. When she looked up her eyes turned to gold and her mouth opened up to a grin so wide that she can swallow the Earth whole. "New roommate!" She squeaked and before Amy can even examine what Cream looked like she found herself in a rib crushing hug from the rabbit.</p>
      <p>"Hello!" Cream said smiling goofily at the pink hedgehog. She sounded as if she had gone running and had breathed in a lot of helium and this didn't go well with her thick Scottish accent "How are yea? I am Cream by the way! Cream Sinclair. Some call me Wolfsbane, but I find that an inaccurate nickname for me. I can turn into animals, but they name me after the form I first turned into, the wolf, but anyway that's not important for now. Who are yea?"</p>
      <p>Amy paused as if unsure how to respond to this, sure Sonic can speak fast without thinking much but this was something else "Uh fine thank you. I am Amy, but please call me Jubilee"</p>
      <p>She extended her hand as if she was holding a bomb. Cream took it and shook it so violently that Amy was convinced that she had fractured every bone in her hand and had dislocated every bone in her arm. "So what can you do?" Amy asked curiously.</p>
      <p>"Watch this!" Cream responded after a moments pause.</p>
      <p>She stood back and in a blink of an eye the peach rabbit shifted into a large brown wolf. Amy couldn't believe what she had seen, and yet she had seen quite a lot already. Before Amy can even figure out whether to scream, or applaud, the wolf rapidly shifted into a fox, then a rabbit, then a hedgehog, then a tiger then back into Cream the rabbit.</p>
      <p>"Amazing…" Amy said looking at the shapeshifter "Very impressive"</p>
      <p>"I know" Cream said energetically "I can turn into any non – Mobian animal that I can think of. However, I…" Her face faltered as if she wasn't quite sure what to say next. "I…can have some problems. When I am in my animal form"</p>
      <p>Amy knew and understood what she was saying and gave her a small hug "I know what you mean." Amy said calmly unsure on what to say "I can't touch anything."</p>
      <p>"What do you mean?" Cream said looking at her curiously. "Are you like Miss Rouge? If she touches anyone, she drains their life force away"</p>
      <p>Amy made a half-hearted attempt at a laugh "No. no. Nothing like that. I can make fireworks come out of my hands"</p>
      <p>Creams eyes lit up "Really?" She said "No wonder. I can smell your firework musk when I am in my animal form"</p>
      <p>Amy had no idea on what to say to this so she said nothing. Cream too also seemed to have no idea on what to say and brought up the first thing on her mind "Have you seen that weird black hedgehog? The one with a metal skeleton?"</p>
      <p>"Shadow?" Amy inquired "What about him?"</p>
      <p>"Well you see…" Cream said unsure if she should say what she really thought "he gives me the creeps."</p>
      <p>"What do you mean?" Amy asked curiously</p>
      <p>"I mean" Cream said as if she was about to say something she didn't really mean or hadn't had enough time to string together "That I don't feel really safe around him."</p>
      <p>"I am afraid that I am going to have to disagree with you on that part" Amy said</p>
      <p>"Why not?" Cream said "I mean I know that I haven't spoken to him much but I just feel a bit afraid around him"</p>
      <p>"He saved my life" Amy said as if that resolved everything, she quickly summarized her encounter with Shadow in Canada. Cream nodded "I understand what you mean" Cream said "but I think I might be just as wrong when I first met Miss Rouge. I was afraid that she might kill me by her touch, but I got to know her better. Perhaps it's the same with him."</p>
      <p>Amy nodded. She chose that it wasn't quite the moment to reveal about Sabretooth or Mephilius or about that 'Scourge' guy. Whatever is happening she had a bad feeling about it.</p>
      <p>
        <em>Later that night</em>
      </p>
      <p>Amy walked down the hallway quietly, trying not to wake anybody up. She still wore her large yellow rubber gloves that protected her from blowing up whatever she touched. She had difficulty sleeping and she had no idea what she felt abut being a mutant. She was afraid about the future and what it held for her.</p>
      <p>She didn't know what she chose to go and sleep near Shadow of all people. She had slept near Sonic for over a year so she could be missing him. She could have chose and sleep near the Professor, a wise and understanding man, hell she could have chosen Rouge the only person in the school who had the closet thing that is close to Amy's 'problem', but no, she chose Shadow.</p>
      <p>She reached Shadow's door and slowly opened it, peeking inside.</p>
      <p>"Shadow?" she said softly.</p>
      <p>She moved inside and closed the door behind her, staring at him. He was sleeping fitfully, grunting and talking some in his sleep. She couldn't understand what he was saying. She watched him, then she moved over to one of the big round chairs near his bed.</p>
      <p>It was then when she noticed Rouge. She was sitting on a one of the chairs on Shadow's right side. Amy didn't need telepathy to tell that Rouge was put on night watch to keep an eye on Shadow and Rouge gave her a look that read her thoughts</p>
      <p>'Can't sleep' Rouge mouthed</p>
      <p>Amy nodded</p>
      <p>'Let me guess feel 'safe' near him I guess' Rouge mouthed at Amy</p>
      <p>Amy nodded again</p>
      <p>Rouge made a gester at the chair on Shadows left side as if understanding how she felt. Amy threw herself into the chair. She watched Shadow for a moment and closed her eyes.</p>
      <p>Rouge was right. Just being close to him made her feel safe.</p>
      <p>After a few moments she too was asleep.</p>
      <p>
        <em>1 Hour later</em>
      </p>
      <p>Shadow hated the dream. It had always cursed him for as long as he can remember. Hell it is the first thing that he can remember. He remembered the pain. All of it.</p>
      <p>
        <em>Flash!</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>The military lab loomed over him, crazy instuments, older – looking stuff. Bottles, machines, tanks of fluid.</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Bright lights fooded the cealing over him.</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Belts held him down, secure to the bed.</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Flash!</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>He was naked. Someone in a mask had drawn on his body with a white pen, showing every branch of his skeleton. The person was a man, but all Shadow can see was the cold, cold eyes.</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Others came in as Shadow fought against the belts that held him.</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Rubber gloves</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Masks</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>White gowns and hats</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Cold eyes</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>One rubber – gloved hand shoved a mask over his mouth and nose. He struggled but lost the fight.</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>The air from the mask tasted metallic</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>The images swarmed before him</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>He can no longer fight</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>His body no longer belonged to him</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>They picked up the bed and lowered it, with him still strapped to it, into a tank of liquid</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>It sloshed around him</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Scalpels flashed around him</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>A black figure loomed in his vision</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>The Scalpels cut</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Pain!</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>And cut</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Pain!</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>And cut</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Unbeatable pain!</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Flash!</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Two men, one looking middle aged the other very young. The older one looked almost like him, except he had no visible mouth</em>
      </p>
      <p>"<em>Mephiles" it said, holding out a hand "and this is Saul"</em></p>
      <p>
        <em>Flash!</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Snow. Bright white Snow. He, Mephiles and Saul were all running naked in the snow</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Flash!</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Saul's dead body in Shadows arms. Mephiles appeared out of nowhere looking livid</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Flash!</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>A beautiful pink hedgehog woman looking on at Shadow</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Flash!</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Mephiles holding the pink hedgehog's dead body. While eating a birthday cake with the words 'Happy birthday Shadow' on it</em>
      </p>
      <p>
        <em>Flash!</em>
      </p>
      <p>He screamed.</p>
      <p>Beside him he saw two figures looming out of the shadows.</p>
      <p>He reacted. Instantly. Instinctively.</p>
      <p>His hands weren't belted down like they were in the dream. Yet he thought that he was still in the nightmare.</p>
      <p><em>Snikt. </em>His claws buried itself into the right figure while his left in its attempt to find the figure sliced and diced in the air, and by what he felt he had deskinned their hands or gloves.</p>
      <p>Silence.</p>
      <p>Then the explosion.</p>
      <p>The bright light was so big that he felt his face on fire. He felt the horrific pain of his skin on his left side getting melted, but at the same time he felt a touch on his right. He felt as if he was getting toched by a long lost lover, light and wonderful.</p>
      <p>Then he felt as if a blast of an electric current had been shot through his body. Throwing him back into the abyss.</p>
      <p>Knuckles had heared the scream of Shadow. Sure it wasn't that loud but long experience told him that this kind of noise doesn't always end well, and the explosion that followed seconds after that was more than enough to send him running into the corridors.</p>
      <p>"Knuckles?" Tikal yelled as she dashed to catch up with her lover. "What is it?"</p>
      <p>It was as if all the students in the class had woken up by the sound of the explosion and in a matter of seconds Knuckles threw open the door to find himself in a war zone.</p>
      <p>Half of the room had been completely and utterly destroyed, as if someone had fired a tank into the room. The strong smell of fireworks smothered the air.</p>
      <p>On the bed was Shadow who had completely passed out and on his left was a speechless Rouge and a traumatized Amy.</p>
      <p>"What happened?" Someone shouted</p>
      <p>"Let me pass!" shouted another</p>
      <p>Almost all the student were attempting to see what had happened all of them were crammed in the corridor.</p>
      <p>Tikal glanced at the crowed and as if they were puppets almost all of them marched back single file back into their rooms that they all vanished as soon as they arrived. Only a handful of students stayed behind.</p>
      <p>Knuckles looked back at Tikal "The Professor won't be happy" he said grumbling.</p>
      <p>"I know. I know! I shouldn't have done that but they could cause some problems you know!" Tikal said, sounding like one of their enemies, Zeena Frost.</p>
      <p>"Yes, the Prof would have a word or two at you, but I don't think he will be happy at this mess!" Knuckles said walking up to Rouge.</p>
      <p>"What happened?" He said kneeling at Rouge's side</p>
      <p>Rouge looked at him inquisitorially "He had a nightmare, he stabbed me near the heart and well I had to do something to save me life!" she said in her old southern accent, Knuckles knew she used it whenever she gets annoyed "I know that I used me powers irresponsibly but I don't want to die!"</p>
      <p>'<em>If you are done arguing perhaps, we should take Mr. Shadow to the medical bay! He would die without that healing factor. Also, we need someone to console Miss Amy Jubilee Rose! She just blew up the school when Mr. Shadow here ripped up her gloves! Also, we need some care to the wall otherwise the whole school would collapse!'</em></p>
      <p>The few students that stayed behind, Sonic, Mighty, Cream, Pyro, Booby and Jet. Mighty turned into his organic steel form and lifted Shadow like a rag doll taking him to the medical bay, with Jet running right behind him. Sonic and Cream went towards Amy who was hugging herself in utter despair, Sonic gave Amy the hug that she would need whenever she had a bad experience, while Cream shifted into a small kitten and attempted to cuddle her leg,</p>
      <p>The cat boys, Bobby and Pyro did an strange move. First the fire cat closed his eyes and made an strange had gestor around the air as if trying to sense every atom in the air.</p>
      <p>"Fire's out. Your move Bobby." He said as if he sensed something from inside the walls themselves "If it had been 45 seconds, we would have been a goanna"</p>
      <p>Another cat, this one Ice blue withdrew a giant water bottle that could have contained all the water in the ocean out of thin air and opened it.</p>
      <p>Water came flying out from it as if fired from a cannon, a large cold chill entered the room as if a portal from the North Pole had entered in and in a matter of seconds the large hole in the wall was replaced with a giant ice sheet.</p>
      <p>Knuckles saw Bunnie Rabbot looking at him with an unreadable face. "Knuckles" she said walking towards him. "What?" Knuckles said in a false calm voice looking at her. He knew that he sounded completely out of charcter. His visor was almost a bright red. However, he wouldn't dare fire. The alternative would be disastrous</p>
      <p>"You want to talk about it?" Bunnie asked</p>
      <p>"That depends on what the subject is" Knuckles said "Which one, Rouge, Amy or Shadow?"</p>
      <p>"All of them." Bunnie said "First, which statement is true, are you jealous of Shadow or do you not like his 'demeaner'?"</p>
      <p>"The second one" Knuckles said "You know that I would be happy for Tikal no matter what path she chooses if you are implying what you think I am implying but I digress. Did you see what he did to Rouge and Amy? He slashed at them and he could have killed them. Imagine if it had been another person sitting at where Rouge was sitting, they would have died! He is a danger to the school! Which also makes him useful for Magneto! If I had it my way and if Magneto wasn't involved Shadow would be on the streets by now, perhaps for a week if I was generous. But I respect the Professors decision, even if he had harmed Rouge and Amy"</p>
      <p>"Which brings us to the next topic. Are you upset at Rouge or Amy?"</p>
      <p>"No." Knuckles said a bit too bluntly "Rouge has had incidences like this before, so she knows that she did what she had to do, but Amy is another matter. Perhaps we can talk to her in the morning or something like that. Perhaps we can make her do something to get it out of her mind or something like that."</p>
      <p>"Like what? Amy and Rouge going out somewhere or something like that? Maybe bring a friend or two?"</p>
      <p>Knuckles paused for a bit and nodded "Yes I suppose that might work. I will let the professor know in the morning. Anyway, we need her out of the school for a bit to…let her guilt down about almost blowing up her new home"</p>
      <p>With that he went back into his room. Had he not had a visor on, had he not have eyes on the back of his head, he would have seen that Bunnies eyes had turned bright yellow.</p>
      <p>Tikal and the Professor observed Shadows body, a good distance away. His face was still half burnt off but it was clear that his healing ability is slowly stitching it up. The professor had said that they will try to wake Shadow up, to see if he was alright. Tikal had came in to volunteer her efforts with Knuckles giving a cryptic OK.</p>
      <p>"Ready?" The two tailed fox said</p>
      <p>"When you are" She said</p>
      <p>'<em>You are perfectly safe now' </em>The Professor was allowing Tikal to hear what he was thinking to Shadow.</p>
      <p>Shadow stirred and moaned, twisting on his bed like a child about to awake from a bad dream in a movie.</p>
      <p>'<em>I want you to stay calm, and tell me if you understand what I am saying'</em></p>
      <p>Shadow opened up his eyes and again moaned like if he hadn't had any sleep for a long time.</p>
      <p>'<em>Do you understand me?'</em></p>
      <p>"Would you get out of my head, you two tailed cue ball!" Shadow snarled</p>
      <p>Tikal laughed; the Professor smiled at this rude retort.</p>
      <p>"Well" Professor Tails Xavier said out loud "I would say you are recovering nicely"</p>
      <p>The Professor moved up closer to the bed, Tikal moved up closer to Shadow.</p>
      <p>"How's Amy? And Rouge? What have they done to me?" Shadow asked, holding his head, trying not to touch the slowly healing burnt part of his face, the smell of fireworks still choked at his lungs. "I feel like if I have been on a ten – day bender as well as swallowed a fire work and I feel like half my face is gone."</p>
      <p>"Rouge 'borrowed' your power" Tikal said</p>
      <p>"I beg your pardon?" Shadow said blinking rapidly</p>
      <p>"Rouge is like a conductor" The professor explained "Any physical contact can cause unconsciousness, seizures, or even death to the one she touches."</p>
      <p>"Sounds fun" Shadow said</p>
      <p>"It's not" The Professor agreed "With mutants, she is able to take on their gifts for a short while. In this case, your ability to heal"</p>
      <p>"Well" Shadow said, feeling his almost fully healed face as if he was touching a bomb detonator "It felt like she almost killed me"</p>
      <p>"If she had held on for any longer, she would have" Tikal said</p>
      <p>"And what about Amy?" Shadow asked seriously "What about her?"</p>
      <p>"As you know Amy has the ability to, put it simply, make fire works out of her hands" The Professor said "and she wears those gloves to protect herself from blowing up anything she touches."</p>
      <p>"In this case my face" Shadow said as if completing the Professor's sentence</p>
      <p>"Correct" Tikal said</p>
      <p>"She had blown up parts of the wall but I guarantee that it will be fixed and back to normal before the sun sets tomorrow" The Professor said "She has a highly destructive capability, possibly more so than Rouge"</p>
      <p>Shadow nodded "I see. I have one small question though"</p>
      <p>"And that is?" Tikal said</p>
      <p>"What were they doing near my bed? It was too early for breakfast"</p>
      <p>"For Rouge" The Professor said "She was there to keep you watch unless if something happened during the night."</p>
      <p>"As for Amy…" Tikal said as if unsure how to answer Shadow's question "All I got out from her mind was that 'she feels safe near you'"</p>
      <p>Shadow raised an eyebrow unsure how to respond to this revelation, so he said nothing.</p>
      <p>The Professor looked on at Shadow like if he was an interesting lab specimen then said "You should get some sleep."</p>
      <p>"Yeah. Night Bub"</p>
      <p>And with that Shadow closed his eyes, and Tikal wheeled the Professor out of the room.</p>
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